Relia spun in place, her eyes like saucers as the cogs in her brain grinded against each other, trying to process the stimuli coming in from every sense. In the blink of an eye, she was thrown into the centre of a vast emptiness, held up by a surface rippling with nothingness, surrounded by the light of stars, planets, moons, and uncountable celestial objects.
The sight brought her breath to a standstill, and similarly her thought processes.
It took a good minute, but eventually she was able to collect herself. Her head swiveled quickly towards the perpetrator, man with a brain-in-a-jar for a head.
She regarded him for a moment, realizing he was doing the same to her, before whispering a question half-hoping to be answered, “Collective consciousness?”
An unmistakable grin grew from his brain-face, Relia shivered from the odd sight, “Yes. In the simplest terms, Missmoke,” Brainmatter started explaining as he started walking towards a direction.
Although, it only looked like he was walking. He stayed in place, putting one foot after the other, while the universe around them moved instead. He stopped after a few steps, just as a 'star’, an orb of light, that betrayed her sense of distance arrived in the middle of the three.
It was the size of a palm, almost exactly the size of hers, glowing and twinkling exactly like stars would.
“This place gives us access to every single mind of every single person in every single place in this world. Everything that you see, ever light, star, planet, or even the tiniest speck of dust,” he paused, emphasizing his words by crouching down and picking up a literal speck that glowed as bright as a normal lighbulb, “everything in this place is a node, a mind. As long as it’s alive, and is thinking, you’ll see it here.”
“…everything?” She whispered in reply, her heart growing cold at the incredulity of his prowess.
“There are exceptions, of course,” he nodded then gestured towards Maxine, “a prime example of a specimen seemingly without thought yet exists with her own node in this place.”
“Ha—” Maxine laughed, seemingly unperturbed by the joke. “Said the man overcompensating by using that tinker glamour?”
Brainmatter rolled his brain-eyes, or, at least, he appeared to do that. He ignored the woman and turned to Relia, “Are you scared?”
“I—” She stopped her reply. Saying no would be lying, but it wasn’t something someone like her should be saying.
“Don’t be, honey.” Maxine suddenly appearing behind her and wrapping her trunk-like arm around her shoulder made her jump. The woman didn’t care though, almost amused at her jumpiness, patting her shoulder and hugging her tighter to almost breathless, “No need to worry, sweetie. The worst that weirdo does with his 'almighty’ powers is make people forget to turn of ovens and hobs.”
“For the last time, Maxxy, that was all you. Your all damn fault your last place burnt down. Stop blaming me You’re just old.”
“I’m younger than you.”
“By a year,” he spoke, scoffing at his friend. “Anyway, no more questions? Good.”
Brainmatter took a step, the sound of his wool slippers echoing through the abyss like a call.
“Wait, wait—” Relia tried to stop him but was too late.
The world around them started flying against the direction Brainmatter walked towards. Starlight turned to streaks of light, trailing at the side as planets and nebulae blurred and disappeared in an instant. The journey only lasted a few seconds, covering an indeterminable amount of distance until the reached one of the nearer 'nodes’.
Then they just stopped. The world didn’t slow down as they approached. From the speed of light to a the speed of a stationary pieces of bread, the world froze to a standstill.
“Ugh…” she groaned, feeling her chest rumble from motion sickness.
“It’ll pass, honey,” Maxine nudged her, grinning. “It’s all in your mind, after all.”
“You don’t get tired of that joke, huh?”
“Never,” she cackled.
“Who’s—”, she stammered, her spit going down the wrong pipe as she realized the 'star’ was right in front of them. A mind, an actual person’s psyche, floating in the air in front of them, “—who’s brain is that?”
“Funny you ask,” Maxine let out a hyna-like giggle.
“You’ll see,” he flicked his finger downwards.
Like a faucet being opened, the light in the middle of the trio flickered and fizzed for a moment before gently pouring down on the floor. Pouring, as it turned to a stream of light that flowed into the nothingness.
Relia watched intently as the last of the light disappeared, brows furrowing as nothing happened afterwards. She looked confusedly towards Brainmatter, feeling dread instantly fill her lungs as his muscular visage was nowhere to be seen.
She was alone.
Creak
She jumped, looking downwards towards the source of the sudden crack— the floor.
“Is that— a splinter?” She whispered to herself, looking at a tiny piece of wood floating on the nothingness.
Crack
Another loud sound, not surprising to her anymore as she was looking at what caused it. The splinter grew, and it kept growing, groaning, and expanding until it formed a fully cut, polished and varnished plank of hardwood. It remained motionless underneath for a moment before shuddering and multiplying, like cells under a microscope, increasing in amount and variety until a familiar floor was constructed into existence.
Bang
“Ah—” Bricks started falling from the sky— startling her again— forming walls that slowly surrounded them like a cage.
Pieces of furniture grew from floating specs of dust, tapestry wove itself from a single thread of lint, and what was once the room they were in before remade itself from floor to ceiling— they were back in the Villain’s parlour.
Relia waited for a few more moments after the room finished building itself, feeling a bit of relief as the inanimate stayed as it was. “What just happened?”
“I sent us to a mindspace,” Brainmatter explained.
She looked towards the two in shock and relief. They were back, and exactly where they where before darkness consumed the stars.
Brainmatter started dusting himself off as he sat down. His hands sent ripples across his shirt, the cloth started flowing like waves, elongating and stretching until it formed a bathrobe of sorts. His socks came alive, wrapping around his feet and thickening, making his already cozy pair of woolly slippers woolier and cozier.
“I want a pair of those,” she thought out loud, quickly shaking her head. “Wait, no, what did you say?”
“A mindspace. Specifically,” Brainmatter tightened the robe’s belt and continued, “mine.”
“It’s so boring, right?” Maxine jeered, faking a yawn. She leaned back and fell into the soft couch she was lying on before, fully relaxing as she tapped the floorboards with her fingers. “For the self-proclaimed 'strongest telepath in all of Tahan’, this guy really doesn’t have imagination.”
Brainmatter let out a snort, “It’s a mindspace, no one can control what it looks like. Not even me.” He turned to Relia, noticing her non-understanding, “A combination of the subconscious and the conscious, this place is, quite literally, my mind. My thoughts, my ideas, my memories. Speaking of—” He raised his hand in the air, summoning a book from one of the shelves. With a quick flick, he opened it and gazed back towards her with a question. “A golden scarab?”
“Y—yeah?” Relia answered, failing to stop the stammering from her anxiety.
“Thank you,” he spoke and plucked the air.
Relia froze in place, feeling something pour out of her forehead. A string of light appeared, short as a finger, thin as a strand of hair, whirling and twisting around like a leaf dancing in a gust. It fluttered in the air rapidly, forming afterimages from the speed, until a three-dimensional image of the golden scarab formed from it’s meticulous dance.
The same exact image was in her mind’s eye just a second earlier.
“What did you just do—”
“Take a seat and relax,” Maxine spoke to her, her tone softer. As soft as a wolf’s howl could sound, anyway.
“What is he doing?” She asked, glancing at the memory. At her memory.
“Don’t know,” she shrugged, “probably—”
“I’m using the mental image you gave me as a reference to look for anything that might match my own memories,” he explained while reading through the book.
“Your memories?”
“We’re in his mind, honey. You need to catch up soon,” Maxine let out a giggle as she grinned towards her before setting her eyes back to the villain.
She felt iffy from the woman’s nonchalance, but still took her advice.
A sigh escaped her lips as she sat down, the softness of the couch quickly alleviating some of the tension in her body. She rubbed her finger along the couch’s armrest, feeling the fuzziness of the felt, feeling her finger depress the material, feeling the stitches and the lint. Feeling everything real— or feeling that everything should be real.
“Odd,” she whispered, looking at her finger.
Something felt wrong about it. Something vague, immaterial. Like it was something from a dream. Despite everything feeling exactly as it was supposed to, there was an instinct screaming inside her that kept trying to remind her that it was a dream. Which it is.
Shaking her head and getting rid of extraneous thoughts, she sighed and looked for something else to focus her mind on. She didn’t want to look at Brainmatter and Maxine for fear of her own sanity reaching their level. She just wanted something else— a distraction.
Relia reached over to the side table, feeling herself start to miss the taste of mint.
“Oh, right. Mindspace,” she murmured, slightly disappointed at the loss of her beverage. 'The inside of a villain’s mind… this seems almost too normal to be true.’
She wasn’t exactly sure what she was expecting, or what normal even was. Not that she was expecting anything, much less something like this happening to her in the span of an hour.
Still, now that whatever was going on was slowing down, she could finally afford the time to breath and think. Her thoughts, naturally, steered towards the villain’s mind. She was in it, after all.
There was a part of her, small as it was, that felt weird after knowing what this place is, at least in the sense that something was missing. At least something she thought was missing. There was no dark, drab, and morally deprived corner. No torture chamber, no snuff films, no illegal-looking technology. There wasn’t even mold. It was just, simply, his house.
Of course, not fully knowing the mechanics surrounding said 'mindspaces’, she still reserved room for doubt.
'Brainmatter… how strong is he?’
Her eyes went back towards the villain, despite her apprehension in doing so, and started observing him up and down. He was currently sitting on his chair, reading through the book in his has at a leisurely speed. She watched the brain swivel left and right, looking up occasionally at the image of golden scarab plucked from her mind’s eye.
'It took two of the previous Seven for this man to be taken down… although, I never read anything about him getting defeated. He just… disappeared.’ Her face turned as a grim realization hit her, accompanied by a plethora of theories forming in her mind— few of them good.
She shook the thoughts out of her head, wanting to focus back to what they were doing and get out of the situation as soon as she possibly can.
'The book… it has a title?’ Her face lightened up in surprise and curiosity, recognizing the letters and words on the book’s spine. She squinted and tilted her head, trying to read them. 'R—e… reading memories without permission is disrespectful—’ Her eyes widened and went up to Brainmatter’s brain-face, finding him give her a wink before continuing to read.
A shiver ran down her back. She quickly looked away and towards a random corner of the parlour, reaching over to her tea wanting a sip of comfort. 'Right. Mindscape.’
“This is… unusual,” Brainmatter muttered quite loudly after a painfully-long silence.
“What is?” Maxine asked, sitting back up on her couch.
“I don’t know yet. It’s just… unusual. I haven’t seen anything like this. Not so far,” he answered cryptically, putting the book into his bathrobe.
The beast-like woman’s eyes widened as she looked towards the villain, “You don’t?”
“Let’s head to your hovel first. I need more information. Don’t want to jinx anything,” he spoke.
And the world listened.
The cosy atmosphere of the parlour was gone in a blink, turned to dust as it coalesced back into a mote of starlight floating in the middle of them. Without pause, the surroundings turned back to galaxies and universes before flying away and mimicking events earlier to a tee.
Another star. Another mind.
And, like previously, the star disintegrated into a mist of light and flowed into the ground. Unlike previously, however, not a splinter appeared, but grass. A single immature blade of grass.
Relia looked around, confirming that the two had disappeared much like they did earlier. She couldn’t even begin to guess why, just that they did.
The blade swayed for a moment from unseen wind before wriggling and multiplying, growing and flowing, going through it’s entire life cycle in the blink of an eye until, at the end, it turned in hay and straw that weaved itself into a lattice— a hay floor laid neatly beneath.
In a similar and unrefutably more terrifying fashion, trees started growing from the sides.
'That’s… an interesting colour,’ Relia’s eyes widened as she watched the sapling turn into a towering oak, its trunk glowing an unusual hue.
The species was unknown to her, although most species of trees were unknown to her. She knew oaks, birches, pines, and maybe coconuts and other fruit trees, but nothing else. They all had one thing in common though, two, in fact. Brown trunks and green leaves.
The ones surrounding her had glowing blue bark and monochrome foliage.
'Beautiful… if I could take pictures in dreams I would— wait, is that… moving?’ Her blood evacuated faster than her processing of what the black 'leaves’ actually were.
The white part of the foliage swayed but stayed in place. The black parts, however, started skittering, crawling down the length of the trunk and all around them in a circle.
Quicker than ever in her entire life, she moved away from the sides, from the encirclement of the hundreds of arachnids, and tried her best to center herself and stay as far away as possible from them. Noticing the encirclement start to tighten, she quickly tried to use her power to get away, only to find out her mist was out of reach.
“No, no, no…” she whispered weakly, crouching down and covering her ears, trying to rid herself of the sound of the spiders crawling around.
Thankfully, after a while, the sound of creepy critters crawling around her ceased, replaced by a loud silence that was only broken by a supressed giggle.
“W—where are we?” She asked as soon as she opened her eyes, her voice failing to mask the nervousness and disgust in them.
Hay floor, silk teepee, and a combination of both decorating the primitive pieces of furniture surrounding the weirdly un-claustrophobic space. Motifs of monster and abomination lined the entirety of the silk around them and the unmistakable whiteness of fangs and bones caught her eye as she examined the furniture around them with more scrutiny.
“Wait a minute, this is—” Her gaze went to Maxine, a plethora of questions shining inside them as she recognized the environment.
“Spiders too much for you?” She asked, grinning at her.
She ignored the woman’s jab. “You’re from the north?”
Vaguely, Relia remembered lessons from her social studies classes, particularly the ones about cultures in other parts of the world.
'The tribes collected trophies from their hunts and made furniture and decorations from them. Their houses are practically made of beasts and… rival tribes,’ she remembered the odd tidbit from her reports.
“You only realized it now?” Brainmatter chuckled, gesturing to Maxine.
“Stereotyping. Such a villain,” she shook her head disapprovingly, “Didn’t know it either, not until this guy showed me my own 'mindspace’.”
“It’s pretty obvious to anyone with eyes,” the villain shrugged.
Relia’s brows curled as she heard their words, “You didn’t know?”
Maxine replied with a flat smile before abruptly raising her hand. Soon after, just as Brainmatter did previously, she summoned her memory. A scroll flew out from one of the shelves made of bone and leather. It took its sweet time circling around them before landing gently and soundlessly into her palm.
She regarded the scroll for a moment before opening it up, looking at it briefly before tossing it towards Brainmatter like a tomahawk.
He caught it effortlessly and started reading. Quicker than before, much quicker, he furled the scroll close and let out a lengthy sigh, “Destroyed.”
“What do you mean?” Relia asked, his expression feeling ominous.
“Not erased?” Maxine added another question, seemingly understanding what he said.
“Not erased. Destroyed,” he repeated, stressing the words while tossing the scroll back to its owner, “no, not even that. Ripped. To shreds.”
Relia’s frown deepened, “There’s a difference?”
“Yes,” he answered simply.
Maxine was looking at the scroll, face turning as she read on. “Could you have done this?”
“I could’ve. But no. This isn’t how I’d do it. This is more like… a child. Or a beast. Inelegant, unsophisticated. Everything about it is immature,” he explained, his tone getting angrier. He soon looked towards Relia and asked a question, “How old are you, Missmoke?”
“I— uh,” she stopped herself from answering, freezing in place instead as her thoughts started running. 'What are you doing, moron?! Giving information to a villain, that’s the dumbest thing you can do! A villain! A… sovereign-rank villain… that can read minds.’
“Honey? You okay?” Maxine waved from afar. “I think your face broke her, Miggy.”
“You’re the one with a face right now, dumbass,” he chuckled.
“That brain-in-a-jar glamour is giving people nightmares.”
“Your face is giving people nightmares. You should try getting one yourself. Who knows, maybe you’ll finally get a man.”
“Says the guy living in the middle of nowhere, alone, in a big empty house.”
Relia coughed, interrupting the two’s bickering, “I— uh. I’m twenty-five.”
“On the young side, huh? That’s good,” he nodded.
“We’re just old,” Maxine reminded him with a chuckle.
“Don’t remind me,” he said as he reached up and massaged his own shoulders. “Anyway, Missmoke, we’re going to enter your mindspace, okay? You have my vow, and by extension that beast woman’s too, that nothing seen or said in there will get out. Of course, I’ll have to ask the same of you, but that should be a given, no?”
“I— uh…”
“Why don’t you use a promise stone?” Maxine asked as she walked closer. “Don’t you have one?”
“Passed it down to one of my kids a few years ago,” he explained with a shrug, “so. Missmoke?”
“Wait wait wait,” Relia spoke quickly as she stepped back and raised her hands. After a deep breath, she started asking questions burning her from earlier, “What is happening? I mean— what are we doing here? Where are— I get that we are in a mind, her mind, but… why? Why are we here? Why am I here?”
Brainmatter let out a tiny chuckle, “One question at a time, girl. Breathe.”
She paused and took a breath, “Right. Sorry…”
“Where we are… well, you already know that. You know, I don’t think you’re too dull to put the pieces together. You just need the pieces—” He gestured towards Maxine who threw the scroll her way.
Relia caught the scroll. Her eyes went to the two of them momentarily, studying their expressions before glancing at the rolled-up parchment.
'This feels weird,’ she thought.
Compared to the vague feeling of everything else so far in the mindspace, the parchment in her hand felt real. Unlike the couch from earlier, there was something about the scroll in her hand that made it feel more real.
She threw away those thoughts for a moment in favour of a new one, the contents of the parchment in her hand.
Quick as she caught it, she unrolled the paper and set her eyes on the ink.
Almost immediately, a sound escaped her lips.
“Huh?” She hummed in confusion, face scrunching up as she read the contents.
Well, 'read’.
Words and letters were written on the piece of parchment, but they were unreadable. Not in a 'right-handed person trying to write with a crippled left hand’ kind of way, but more in the 'this printer fucked up’. Everything looked torn.
The letters were torn, the ink was split, and the words made no sense. Like a beast made of ink got thrown into the scroll and went wild in its utter disdain towards literature— or, in the woman’s memories.
“To shreds…” Relia whispered, trying to connect the pieces. “I get that we’re trying to find the person who made the scarab with this. But I don’t get how reading memories—”
“Now that’s where you’re wrong Missmoke—”, he shook his head, “—we’re not trying to find him. At most, I can maybe restore this memory in the next hour, but there’s no reason to do that.”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“No reason?” She narrowed her eyes at him, “then… why?”
Brainmatter chuckled, deciding to throw her a bone with a very cryptic monologue, “Familiarity is funny, no? Something in the back of your mind is nudging, whispering, telling you about something it’s not even sure it knows. Yet, it’s an instinct in every living being, why do you think that is?”
“Because… brains are limited?” She answered with a question, unsure herself. She had an idea about long-term memory and short-term memory, but not enough to give an answer that would make sense of the situation.
“Ah, but that’s only when we talk about memories in measure of the mind. What of those beyond that? Beyond the physical brain?”
Relia couldn’t help but frown after hearing his questions. Riddles were fun, she might even enjoy them from time to time. However, 'time to time’ didn’t include this time.
As if sensing her annoyance, Brainmatter gave a light shake of the brain, “Instinct, muscle, genetic— there are various other memories that persist beyond the mind of a person. Some things aren’t simply forgotten, only needing a key.”
“Familiarity…” She muttered.
Brainmatter nodded, “Exactly. Familiarity is a reminder that memory exists and accessing it is only a matter of either quantity or quality.”
“You and your riddles,” Maxine groaned in the background. “It’s why you’re still single.”
“We’re both alone, nimrod.”
“Only old people call other people 'nimrods’”
“Only old people use 'honey’.”
While the two were arguing, Relia was deep in thought trying to fit the pieces together.
'Then… the memory exists. Why bring us here? Just to check? No, there are other telepaths, much more trustworthy telepaths, in Vanguard alone. She brought us specifically to his man—’ It finally clicked in her mind. “Collective consciousness.”
Brainmatter’s brain-wrinkle mouth widened to a grin, “Something like erasing the memory of multiple unrelated people is only possible with access to this place. This place, at least to my knowledge, is the only place that connects minds to more than just the physical.”
Her eyes immediately shot towards Maxine, a question burning inside them.
“No,” he answered as if having read her mind, “as I said to Maxxy earlier. I could have done this, but I wouldn’t do it in such a… bestial way.”
“Why are you looking at me when you said that?” Maxine grabbed the nightstand beside her and tossed it at the brain in a jar. She then turned to Relia and nodded, “Man’s a menace, but he’s not that much of a menace.”
Relia’s eyes only left Maxine after that less-than-reassuring nod. She returned her gaze to the villain, asking a question, “How would— have you done it before?”
“Who knows?” He winked at her. “To pull back a bit—”
Maxine’s mindspace disintegrated back into the star it came from. The three of them were back in the middle of the universe of minds, surrounded by streams of starlight and memories.
“Collective consciousness. I didn’t name it just because. Everything here is connected in more ways than one. One of those ways are if you’ve been following, memories,” he reached into his pocket and took out the book from his mindspace. Another gesture and the scroll in Relia’s hands flew to his own.
“And that’s where you come in, honey.” Maxine appeared beside Brainmatter, leaning on his shoulder with a grin on her face. “We need more than two memories to track—”
“We?” Brainmatter interrupted, his brow raised at the woman.
“It’s a team effort,” she wrapped her arm around him. “Look, you were taking too long with your fancy words and unneeded explanations. Gist of it is, we need three memor—ack~”
Having pushed her face away, Brainmatter let out a tiny chuckle, “Three of the same instances. To find who did this. I could make do with two, but the two of us are too connected.”
“Why three?”
“It’s just easier,” he explained with a shrug.
“Then why don’t you just restore the memory? Surely you’d find whoever did this with that?”
He shook his head, “Memories have a tendency to restore itself. Familiarity, remember? That’s why, whoever is doing this, is doing it constantly. Hence why we need to look for the source rather than treat the wound.”
“I—”, she bit her lip, a moment’s hesitation briefly stopping the question she was going to ask. “What will we see there? In my mind, I mean.”
“I don’t know. It’s your mindspace.” He gestured towards her. “It’s going to be the space your mind thinks you are the safest, whether you know it or not.”
“Better not to think about it, honey. You can’t control it anyway,” Maxine chimed in.
“Are you ready?” Brainmatter asked.
She looked back at him, another curiosity worming its way out uncontrollably, “Why are you helping us? Aren’t you— weren’t you a—”
“Villain?” He finished her words, chuckling and giving a glance towards Maxine. “She’s cute, huh?”
“She’s too young for you, Miggy. I might actually turn you in if you—” Maxine quickly ducked underneath a rowboat launching straight towards her head out of nowhere.
“I meant naive, you salacious old cod,” he rolled his brain-eyes.
“Whatever you say.” She stood back up and brushed herself off. “Anyway, just trust the brain in a jar. Besides, how would you feel if something supposedly only you can do turns up to be the cause of a crime?”
'That… makes sense.’ She thought, despite the frown on her face deepening. Nevertheless, she gave a resolute nod back. “Fine, let’s go.”
“Gone,” he snapped his fingers.
They flew and they stopped.
Relia’s chest drummed a quick beat as she saw the star in front of her. Whether placebo or not, she felt that the particular star was hers. It was her mind.
The star fell and the process of her mindspace building itself started.
Yet, there was no feeling. Not finger prodding in her head, no instinctive fear that something was wrong. She knew it was her mind, and she knew they were currently entering it, but not an iota of stimulus was entering her, warning her, screaming at her. Nothing at all.
And that scared her.
“Huh,” Brainmatter let out a sound, breaking Relia out of the horrified stupor she put herself in. “That’s curious.”
A plethora of emotions stirred up from her chest as she started looking around at her mindspace. The patch of yellowish mould formed on the damp spot underneath the pipes that never seemed to stop leaking despite all the tape they’d used. The smudges of chalk etched near the ceiling because the custodian was too short to reach that high. The smell of stale glue from the rotting wallpaper. The sound of wood boards creaking with every step.
She knew everything about the place.
'It looks exactly the same as before,’ she couldn’t help but tear up.
“You don’t look like the orphan type,” Maxine jested from behind Brainmatter.
“And what does the 'orphan type’ look like?” She snapped before remembering who she was snapping at.
“Not you,” Brainmatter cut in cooly. “You can get therapy later, right now, we need the memory.”
She stared at him for a moment before asking a simple question, “How?”
“This is your mind. How do you remember things?”
Her frown deepened, annoyance was slowly building at the man’s non-answers, “I don’t— ow!”
She reeled back as something hit her forehead.
“Ha—” Maxine laughed. “Don’t remember too hard, honey.”
“Ugh,” she groaned, rubbing her forehead. There was no pain, thankfully, only surprise. “Is this it?”
In front of her was a sketchbook, floating in the air, weathered and nearly ripped from use. She grabbed it and rubbed the side with her thumb, nostalgia filling her up as she remembered all the times she opened the pad.
“Do I just… open it?” She asked, earning the soft chuckles of the two others in the room. She rolled her eyes, realizing the naivete of her question, and opened the sketchbook. “Hmm?”
Instead of words, doodles were etched on the pages. She recognized the art style. It was hers. Or, at least, hers from two decades ago. Somewhere in that time, since the drawings were child’s doodles.
On the page was a particular gold-coloured beetle, scratched and ripped to oblivion like Maxine’s was, but still obviously a beetle.
As she was about to ask how to read her own memories, images suddenly filled her mind for a split second. Memories of mostly static and blackness, occasionally interrupted by clear images of television and sometimes of newspapers and bulletin boards.
It was hard to see much, much like it was hard to read much in Maxine’s memories, but there was one particularly vivid headline on the news that caught her attention.
“Hero,” she murmured, turning towards Maxine, “You were right. It was a retired hero.”
Brainmatter’s brain-brow wrinkled at her words, quickly catching the sketchpad she threw at him. He took a single gander at the contents before nodding.
“Of course I was right,” Maxine boasted with a smug grin.
“You would’ve been about eight or nine,” he spoke, “quite vivid memories, I might add. Rare. You definitely treasure them more than most people do.”
She stared at the sketchbook quietly before throwing the inevitable question, “What next?”
“Next is… this,” he spoke as he let the three memories lie in his hands.
The scroll, the book, the sketchpad. Three forms of media, three different memories, all of them started floating in the air and around him in a circle. With his right hand raised, starlight started glittering and gathering around his palm like mist and fog, coalescing in a crystalline tool she’d only seen in books— a sextant.
The books around him glowed for a moment before transforming into lenses that flew into the slots of the tool, moving and adjusting rapidly as Brainmatter raised to his eye and started peeping through the telescope.
“There you are,” he spoke with a menacing grin befitting of his alignment. “The distance is… I’ll have to summon Syne…”
“Really? Haven’t seen her in a hot minute,” Maxine jumped up, nearly clapping as she went beside Brainmatter.
“That’s because I’m retired,” he chuckled, waving his hand upwards.
Just as a question was about to come out of Relia, the darkness underneath them rippled and shuddered as if exhaling a long-forgotten breath. The nothingness they stood on began to bend and swell.
Suddenly, impossibly, a galleon emerged, its barnacle-encrusted hull gleaming with luminescent starlight. Its gargantuan masts rose and broke through the floor like fingers grasping the moon, sails stitching themselves together from mists of celestial dust and starstuff that shimmered from its undulations.
The sound of wood groaning with a deep tone started echoing all around, accompanied by the crashing of waves and water slamming against the wood.
'What is happening?!’ She thought while looking towards the bow of the ship, watching silver and darkness entwine and forge a figurehead of a woman pointing forward, a sextant in her hand and a wheel in the other.
“I really want one,” Maxine bounded with elation, appearing all over the place to pat and massage the wood.
“Maybe use your power some more and you’d get one then,” he cackled with pride, appearing at the helm of the ship. He looked down towards Relia who was still agape at the spectacle. “Hold on to something, girl. This won’t even take a minute.”
“Where are we going?!” She shouted from the bow.
“Physically, nowhere. Mentally—”, he looked to the distance, “—if I’m right, somewhere at the edge of Villainopolis.”
----------------------------------------
“Fuck!” Calvin cursed under his breath, the pain on his leg shooting up like fireworks as he put even a minute amount of weight on it.
The scorching pain felt like daggers stabbing in every way through his bone, sending spots in his vision with every step as he slowly climbed up the stairs. His jaw clenched involuntarily, gritting his teeth in an attempt to ignore or overcome the pain in vain.
'Never thought fucking stairs would be the bane of my existence, but here we fucking are,’ he thought, grunting as he kept climbing.
He had looked for a way to alleviate it, remove himself from the hellish pain, but there was little solution on hand short of drugging himself with the, supposedly highly addictive power-disabling bag of 'zip’ Batty gave him earlier— be in pain or do drugs. While the idea was immediately and unequivocally crossed out earlier, the suffering he was currently going through was making him reconsider.
Batty, walking up the stairs in front of him, paused and turned around as he was catching his breath. She glanced at his mask before setting her gaze lower, down at his legs. He followed her line of sight, turning the new pair of pants briefly white to check if the wounds opened up.
Thankfully, they didn’t.
“We can go slower,” Batty whispered, worry in her voice.
“No,” he replied, indignant. “The faster we get out, the faster I can sort this out.”
She took another look at his legs before nodding, “How painful?”
“How painful do you think? Fucking painful as fuck,” he cursed, continuing his climb, “that miser of a cape should’ve given us more of those stims.”
She stifled a small chuckle, “Even if he had more, he wouldn’t have. It’s mostly adrenaline with a couple of drugs sprinkled in. Like most things, dangerous if you take too much at once. It won’t kill you, but as someone who’d done it before, I don’t recommend it. Especially with hero doses.”
“You’re really taking his side now?” Calvin grunted, trying to ignore the pain. “Although… you just gave me an idea.”
“You keep getting 'ideas’, kid. I don’t think that’s good for you.”
“I’m just wicked smart, yo.”
“Not smart enough to hush up in the middle of sneaking through a terrorist’s lair.”
“We’re both talking, though?” he whispered back, scoffing. “Anyway, give me a second.”
Closing his eyes, he started reaching towards his new best friend, [Personal Debt]. It took him a handful of seconds but he grasped the power eventually, concentrating on it while stretching the finger and worming its effects to borrow adrenaline production from his future self.
“Hooh… woah,” he nearly moaned from effect.
The pain faded quickly, yet there was no numbness. In fact, there was the opposite of numbness.
His chest jumped as his heart started to sound like war drums getting played by someone on speed. Breaths became smoother but also more frequent. Hearing improved. Sight sharpened. He could even start tasting the inside of his own mouth— which was sorta disgusting— but he could.
Everything was dialled up a notch, which unfortunately included the anxiety and the stress. He started flinching at the shaking ground he’d learned to partially ignore made him think that the world was going to swallow him up.
“Uh, kid?” Batty’s voice boomed in his ears despite her whispering. “You okay?”
“I— I’m fine. I’m good. I’m okay. Just— ack.” He bit his tongue trying to catch up with his thoughts.
She frowned, “Whatever you’re trying, stop it.”
“Already on it.”
Heeding her words, he stopped borrowing and started 'repayment’ while also testing the other idea he had.
Super Help
Personal Debt
Temporarily borrow resources from the Super’s future self. Payment can be deferred or postponed with a proportional increase of interest.
'I may not be the sharpest, but I know what deferred means,’ he thought, trying to pull on the power while keeping the idea in mind.
The world dulled and turned foggy, almost like when he was going into shock earlier. His legs hurt twice more than before, his breathing quickened and became rougher. Skin turned numb, eyes darkened, tinnitus blasted his ears— everything spun right back down to and past numbness.
He grunted, feeling weak, leaning against the wall beside him for support.
“What’s happening now?” Batty quickly jumped back down to support him.
“I’m okay— just, after effects.”
“Of your idea?”
“Tried to remove the pain,” he answered vaguely. “It worked for a bit, but… well, you see.”
The 'repayment’ like instantly drained a portion of the adrenaline still in his system. Additionally, it also sucked on the meagre amount his body was producing, which could explain why it lasted longer than he wanted. Still, the dullness faded quickly enough for him to be back in action a handful of seconds later.
Although, those handful of seconds were enough to make him shudder in anticipation of what was inevitably coming. With all the debt he’s been acquiring, and with how the power is relatively new and severely untrained, he knows he’ll have to suffer for some time after. He had no idea how, or how long, which only made it worse in his mind.
'God rest your soul,’ he prayed, offering his condolences to his eventual self. Turning back to his co-escapee, Calvin raised his hand and gave her a thumbs up as an answer to the question plastered on her face. “I’m good.”
She considered him for another moment before giving up and just moving on, “Stay alert and quiet. We’re nearly up.”
“Hooray,” he celebrated dryly.
“At least try staying quiet, kid.” She scoffed.
Without any prompting, Batty raised her wrist and started tapping the holowatch they recovered earlier. After a moment, a holographic console popped up from the display, transforming in the next second into a three-dimensional blueprint Calvin was now rather intimately familiar with.
It was a map of the lair. Only hers was denser, filled with more information, details, and miscellaneous minutia that Calvin would have no idea how to even start understanding.
“Our route to the portals should be relatively simple. Look at this,” she started explaining, manipulating the blueprint to show him the floors above, “the next floor is pretty simple. A room in the centre with two corridors going to the sides. Even the next floor—”
“Shouldn’t we have talked about this earlier?” Calvin brought up a point.
“You were too busy trying not to bleed out,” she quipped, obviously annoyed at his interruption.
He let out a scoff, “Two corridors at the side?”
“Hugging that large centre area, yeah. Easy to scout, easy to go through.”
“Why’s your map better than mine?”
She tapped his forehead with her bat, “Focus, kid.”
“It’s just unfair, you know?” he murmured. “Why don’t we go through the centre? What’s inside?”
“No idea. Didn’t really go through there on account of getting running for my life with beetles on my ass.”
He glanced at the map, furrowing his brows as he tried to understand her. “Why not?”
“Locked,” she explained simply.
“Ah,” he nodded. “Okay, so we sneak through the side corridors. Simple. Then?”
“Well… simple, but simple doesn’t mean easy.” She shook her head, tracing her fingers over the corridors. “It’s a straight corridor.”
His eyes narrowed. “…and?”
She sighed, “How would you sneak through a straight and clear corridor?”
“Why would we need to sneak through? I don’t think anyone’s going to be left in there.”
“Just like there was no one left in the prison?”
“…right,” he nodded, catching what she was pitching towards him, “we’re sitting ducks.”
“Ducks?” She tilted her head.
“Figure of speech,” he said, waving his hand. “So, straight corridor, no cover. And everything’s made of concrete, right?”
“Right?” Despite her confusion over the last point, she nodded. “It won’t matter if we don’t bump into anyone, or anything while passing through. But if we do, we’ll be seen immediately.”
“That’s… not exactly the case,” Calvin muttered, his mind reeling back and tossing him a memory of familiar circumstances.
He closed his eyes and pulled on his will, descending into his inner world, into the place where all his powers reside and presented themselves to him as glowing white orbs. He noted three new additions somewhere on the periphery, vague in their individuality, smaller and more immaterial than the others, but still within arm’s reach if he wanted to try grabbing them— figuratively speaking.
Still, none of those three were the reason why he was focusing his utmost at the moment.
“Is this another one of your ideas?” Batty’s voice pierced through his focus. “Listen, I get that you have a lot of 'toys’ to play with, but we don’t have time—”
“I’m trying to give us somewhere to hide… or something like that,” he whispered before blocking her out again.
He started approaching the 'orb’ representing one of his most versatile powers, [Colour Control], pulling it into his hands. The knowledge of how to manipulate and control it and its abilities to his wants and needs were now more than instinctive. It felt like an actual limb.
And that level of control is what he needed right now.
'Okay, so my pants turned white back then, but not the blood. The question is… why?’ He felt that the power was more malleable than he was making it out to be, more stretchable than his imagination was. 'It’s not the Manning Effect. It can’t be. I can change my skin easily, not a single iota of resistance— not like that time.’
The memory of him blinding Driver, or at least the hulk-ified version of the man, by changing his eye’s colour to black felt nearly vivid to him. The strain was immense, like pushing on a tree. It wasn’t too different from when he tried to change [Impervious Pebble]’s colour, or the mysterious golden wrench’s for that matter.
'I think I’m looking at it the wrong way,’ he thought, finally manipulating the power to change his, Batty’s, and both their outfit’s colours to a shade of grey closest to cement. 'Painters don’t dip their brush once, stroke once, and finish. They’re not printers. That’s just dumb.’
Manipulating the power again, he started applying another coat, another layer on top of the grey. A different hue, a different pattern, completely disconnected from the previous grey.
'This feels kinda like painting by number. Kinda,’ he laughed inwardly, adding more layers of different shades to the camouflage. He felt an increase in cost, both in spirit and stamina, as he added another layer. Negligible, but perceptible. 'More layers means more resource cost. Noted.’
After feeling satisfied enough, he removed himself from his inner world and opened his eyes, a smile blooming on his face as he saw Batty intently looking at her arm.
“It worked,” he said with a grin, wanting to shout in excitement. Unfortunately, present circumstances necessitated a simple fist-pumping for celebration. 'Like Sebastien told me, habit and perspective.’
“This… is helpful,” Batty approved with a hushed tone, her gaze switching back and forth between him and her arm. “But don’t rely on it too much. We don’t know if those beetles can see us through heat or something.”
He admired his work, trying to gauge how much they’re camouflaged by comparing his arm against the wall, “It’s better than nothing.”
“Couldn’t you have done this earlier?”
“I was a too busy trying not to bleed out.”
She chuckled, “Well, we won’t get spotted easily, but it’s still a corridor. We’re still in plain sight, so if someone or something spots us, we run as soon as we can and as fast as we can. You’re in no condition to fight. Don’t forget that.”
“We’re fucked if we get spotted. Got it.”
She shook her head lightly, ignoring him. “The next floor up is simpler and safer. It’s a hangar-looking floor. We’re going to have to improvise when we get there, the map doesn’t tell which room is which.”
“Improvisation is my middle name.”
“You don’t even have a last name, kid.”
“I’ll get one once we get out.”
She rolled her eyes, “You ready?”
“Go up, go through shortcut, find the portals, go home, get some sleep. Sounds easy enough.”
“Remember your words, kid,” she said, scoffing.
----------------------------------------
Exactly a minute and a half later
“Straight corridor, huh?” Calvin muttered sarcastically, giving the currently-crouched Batty a side-eye.
“Your sarcastic commentary is not at all distracting, kid,” Batty spoke through gritted teeth, Calvin’s snark not helping their predicament.
“I guess it makes sense why they’d do this… I mean we probably would’ve been doing the same thing if it weren’t for Lightspeed still behind us,” he thought out loud. He let out a little wince as he sat down beside the door, feeling his legs start to numb from the pain.
She glanced at his legs before shaking her head in reply. “We don’t have the firepower for that.”
“Maybe you don’t,” he looked towards the corridor 'entrance’ at the side, wondering if Dox’s finger guns would be able to, “but, yeah. It’s like they brought a bomb or something.”
Filled, to the brim, with stone and metal. It wasn’t just that they destroyed the corridor, but somehow they also managed to compact the debris enough that neither of them would know where to start digging, if they could even dig through it.
“You know what? Fuck those guys,” he grumbled, putting pressure on his right thigh.
“You said it makes sense they’d do that,” Batty echoed his words with a scoff.
“Yeah. But still, fuck 'em,” he turned towards her, towards her hands that were busy wriggling a couple of metal hooks through a hole, “Are you sure you can unlock it like that?”
The door was practically a vault. As wide as it was tall, as heavy as it looked, and locked like it contained something that would fit nicely in the space left in Calvin’s [Ear Pocket Locket]. He didn’t even know if it was actual steel. For all he knew, it was 'super’ steel, or some sort of tinker steel, whichever one existed in this place.
What made it silly, at least to him, was that it still had a keyhole in the middle, right on top of the spinny vault 'doorknob’ that all cartoon vaults had.
“I’m trying. Your shitty tools aren’t helping,” she grumbled, meticulously trying to unlock the door with the lockpicks Calvin bought.
“Give me back those shitty tools then if they’re not helpful.” He rolled his eyes.
“In a second,” she muttered, a clicking sound immediately rang out soon after. “There.”
Calvin looked at her in surprise, “huh…”
She huffed, passing his tools back, “Surprised?”
“Can you teach me?” he asked, all the seriousness he can muster in his voice.
Batty stood up and offered him a hand, “No, but I'll get you a kit if you want.”
“I can buy my own,” he grumbled, taking her hand. A pained groan fought its way out of his gritted teeth as he stood up with her help.
“I’ll get you a good one,” she looked at his once more. “Are you sure you’re okay? You can walk?”
“If I said no, would it make a difference?”
“I guess not,” she gave him a once-over before gesturing for him to stand back.
She held the vault door's handle, looking back again towards Calvin and hushing to remind him of the value of silence in the art of subterfuge, a fact he seems to forget quite often.
The two braced themselves as she slowly and quietly turned the spinny handle.
'That is one lubricated wheel,’ Calvin thought, marvelling at the soundless giant vault knob.
After feeling the butter-like smoothness of the wheel’s spin, she started briskly rotating it until it stopped— a loud and hollow metallic click echoed from inside the door. The two grimaced from the noise, but nevertheless kept their effort to be stealthy up.
Batty slowly pulled the door open while Calvin started feeling his powers. He was making sure he was ready this time, in case any unfortunate incident happened again. He quickly lifted his mask and chucked a screw into his mouth, preparing to augment his defence just in case.
'Thinking about it, I haven’t tried using [Mouthbound Catalyst] with [Colour Control]. I wonder what’ll happen if I—’ His ever-fleeing train of thought stopped as the first crack of light flickered from behind the door.
'Wait, flicker?’ His eyes widened as he fully peeked through the opened door.
White and yellow stone. Embroidered carpets and tanned hide. Etched symbols and painted gold. Braziers. Torches. If Calvin didn’t know any better, he’d think that the vault door was a portal back to Earth— some time in ancient Egypt.
'This looks like a pharaoh’s courtyard,’ Calvin thought.
The space was large, but complete with pottery, plants, gilded furniture, and multitudinous amounts of opulence that made him thankful for the large amount of free space in his pocket.
“Why is— right. Pyramid,” Calvin muttered as it clicked. “Wait, but pyramids are tombs—”
“Shh!” Batty shushed, shooting him a glare.
Calvin covered his mouth, or at least the part of his mask where his mouth ought to be, while saying sorry with his gaze, forgetting the fact that he was wearing a mask.
She shook her head disapprovingly before gesturing for him to wait where he was then walking into the room. With brisk but careful steps, she scouted the room and checked the corners, beckoning Calvin to come along after making sure they were safe.
As he passed through, he looked at the vault door in contemplation, 'Should probably leave that open. Just in case.’
He checked his holowatch again to see if Lightspeed’s still alive, but unfortunately, the man had gone radio silent since earlier. Either the cape was in some kind of trouble, in which case he wouldn’t be able to help with the bullet holes, or he was dead.
'Don’t like the guy but I don’t want him dead. Don’t want Alex to kill me in my sleep,’ he thought, briefly reminiscing and missing the relatively simple life he had just half a day ago.
“Ugh,” he groaned, feeling a migraine stab at his brain.
“Stay alert, we don’t know if there’s something here,” Batty’s voice returned his focus. “Although it does look empty…”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Calvin chuckled, looking around at the place absolutely filled with plants and gold.
“I meant there’s no one here,” she rolled her eyes. “Or nothing, I guess. It’s a blip on the map.”
“No Gatling scorpions bursting out of the ground?”
“That’s why I said we should still be careful.”
“Right,” he nodded, removing their cement camo.
She looked at him and at her arm, tossing a question his way, “Can’t you leave it on?”
“Why?” He asked back.
“It’s still cement after this room,” she explained.
“I’ll put it on then. For now, though,” Calvin changed their colour scheme to white and gold, fitting the theme of the room.
She looked at him and then at herself, brows furrowing slowly. “White and gold? Right, make us easier targets, won’t you?”
“It fits the place, at least. I don’t really know exactly how to camo here in this room,” he explained, gesturing to the multitudinous colours that would make them stick out like a sore thumb whatever colour he turned them to.
“We’ll be right out anyway…” She just sighed and held her hand out.
“Famous last words.” Calvin took out the golden wrench from his pocket and handed it to her, feeling jealous as she immediately turned it into a baseball bat.
They quickly walked through the room, hugging the wall just in case something came out from the plants and attacked them. While the plants were sparce for leaves, both of them knew beetles much smaller than the ones that attacked them existed, and that they were possibly more dangerous than those ones.
Midway though their trek, Calvin’s attention was snatched by something towards the centre of the room. An odd feeling overcame him. A tickle in his stomach— and not the good kind. The 'holy fuck I’m falling to my death’ kind.
“This feels weird—” He narrowed his eyes, feeling his mind fog up as the scenery around him started to become unfamiliar. “What was I doing? Where am—”
The feeling of [Vigilant Aegis]’ power scratching at his attention flared up like alarm bells, a golden shine approaching from the side gave him enough information and awareness to activate the power alongside [Mouthbound Catalyst].
A steel shield appeared, blocking his view and the attack, a loud metallic clanging evidence of its usefulness.
“The fuck?!” Calvin muttered while jumping away and keeping his eye on the shield. He winced as he landed, his wounds sending him reminders that they existed. “Wait, why the hell am I injured?”
The shield disintegrated a second later, revealing a woman wearing a white and gold baseball attire. She was wielding a golden baseball bat with both hands, pointing it towards him like it was a claymore.
“Who are you?” Calvin asked, brows furrowing as she felt oddly familiar to him.
“That’s what I want to know, cape.” She replied, undisguised venom apparent in her voice.
“That’s what you want— did you forget your own name or something? Why are you— ugh,” his words were interrupted by an ungodly stinging in his head. “What the hell? wWy did I forget— Hey!”
He dodged a swing to his head, ducking under and tackling Batty to the ground.
“Where am I, cape?! Is this another one of your facilities?” Batty asked with a sneer, trying to smack him with her bat.
“What do you mean? It’s me!” Calvin shouted back while dodging. “Do I look like a hero?!”
“Only capes wear stupid costumes—” she spoke, trying to swinger her weapon again.
“You’re a stupid costume!” He grabbed the handle of the bat after that intellectual and witty comeback, wrestling it away from her hands.
He managed to toss it to the side, sadly not after getting tossed aside himself.
“Ugh— I hate fighting…” He flinched from another painful pang of migraine. “Wait— migraine?”
“Start talking or start crying,” she growled.
He looked at her for a moment, trying to see if there was something on her that was unusual apart from the fact that she seemed to be experiencing some form of dementia. As far as he could tell, there was nothing. No beetle, no weird creature, no tinker tech. Which meant only one other thing.
“There’s someone in this room erasing our memories,” Calvin whispered as he looked around.
She frowned and squinted, “What the hell are you on about?”
“Just, wait,” he glanced towards her, catching her eyes midway at her own glance towards the discarded baseball bat. “Please, just— don’t even think about it.”
“Erasing memories?” she paused, eyes widening as she looked at him accusatorily. “How do I know you’re not the one doing that? If that’s even happening?”
“Because that would be dumb. Although I am, I’m not dumb enough to say it if I’m doing it,” he rolled his eyes. “First we need to find who— fuck— stop it!”
Calvin looked up at the ceiling and gauged its height before jumping up to it with his power. He tried to stick himself against the ceiling, but [Surface Meld] was too weak as he expected. Still, the power held him long enough that had enough time to look around for the perpetrator before falling down.
'There’s no one here?’ He frowned.
His eyes narrowed as he tried looking for anything out place, at least out of place in the very normal ancient Egyptian scenery below him, Unfortunately, sparce little stood out. He didn’t see a person, nor a robot, trying to Professor X him. Just some thin shrubbery and pieces of furniture.
He did notice an odd implement at the centre of the room just as he started falling.
'Was that a pod?’ he thought, brows curling as [Surface Meld] finally let go.
It didn’t take a second’s thought to make him think of it to be the prime suspect for whatever was happening to him and Batty. It did take a few seconds of hindsight to also tell him that it’s probably dangerous and likely a trap.
“Ow, ow. That still hurts,” he winced despite softening his landing with [Jumper]. “And that’s enough of you.”
“Wha—” Batty, who was inching towards her bat, stopped in place as pebbles surrounded her joints.
“Stay!” He pointed towards her annoyedly before jogging towards the golden bat and then dashing towards the pod.
The room was small, at least relative to the prison which was a football field compared to this courtyard, so it didn’t take more than a few seconds for him to reach the pod.
“It’s an egg,” he murmured, looking at the shape that was wildly different from the other pods he’d seen so far. “And it’s not green.”
The liquid was black and red, something that felt like he’d seen before. His thoughts were interrupted by another stinging pain, a sign that whatever was going on was still going on.
'Let’s see,’ he circled the egg until he reached a console not unlike the one he saw in front of the pod. 'No wire this time… which means I have to guess which button opens this shit up. Well… I don’t have to?’
Quickly concluding to himself that none of the buttons probably wasn’t an instant kill, not to him anyway, he slammed his hand on all the buttons. He also didn’t have the time or the patience to keep getting stabbed in the brain.
The sound of steam releasing made him back away quickly, a smart move considering that the glass walls of the egg started opening up and releasing the gloopy and gory liquid. He stepped away from the gross slime, but his eyes never left the egg itself, waiting for anything to pop out.
'Show yourself, fucker,’ he thought, winding the bat back and readying himself to whoever was inside. 'Wait, I could’ve just smacked the glass with this—’
A shadow appeared and shot straight towards him from the goop.
“Fuck!” He cursed in surprise, swinging the bat at the creature.
A satisfying metallic thunk rang out from his strike. The creature, whatever it was, didn’t fly out. At least, not all of it did. Most of it turned to pink and black mist, the rest turned to chunks that splattered in the general direction of his swing.
“Uh…” Calvin looked at the blood-drenched bat and his hands with knitted brows. “What the fuck was that?”
“Hatchling,” Batty’s voice suddenly came from the bushes. More than ten seconds have passed by from the fact that she was free from the pebbles. “It came from this thing.”
He tensed up and aimed the bat in her direction, “Stop, I’m not a hero.”
“Sure,” she scoffed. “It’s a hatchling… I think.”
“You think? What do you mean?”
“Could’ve been a hatchlette. It’s hard to tell now that it’s insides are outsides.”
“Was it the one erasing our memories?” He asked. “Do you remember me now?”
She stared at him for a moment before shaking her head, “…no. I don’t know. You seem… familiar, but I still don’t know you.”
“Damn…” He clicked his tongue. “Just… trust me for now. At least until we get out.”
She stared at him, not replying.
He sighed and passed the bat over to her, “gist of it is, we’re trying to escape.”
She looked around, assessing the environment, “Okay. Where do we go?”
“You have the map,” he gestured to her watch. “Get your bearings or something, I need to grab this first.”
He put his hand on the machine and tried willing it inside his pocket, feeling resistance not dissimilar to when he tried putting the power-sucking pod from earlier.
“Pocketproof or whatever the hell,” he sighed, turning to Batty. He looked at the bat in her hand, remembering what happened last time. “Can you smack this?”
Her eyes narrowed, “Why?”
“It’s pocketproof anyway, just smack it to bits so they can’t use it.”
“Huh,” she hummed, brows softening as a smirk appeared on her face. “Gladly.”
She stood next to the machine and wound her bat back, seemingly preparing for the meanest swing she’d make in a lifetime. After a second of pause, the bat was swung at a blinding speed, faster than Calvin had seen her swing before, smacking against the egg.
Boom
An explosion of glass and metal made the two of them step back. A cloud of smoke and dust and leaves rose up in the air, obscuring their vision.
'Fuck!’ Calvin quickly went towards Batty and pulled her back, feeling her flinch at his touch. However, it looked like she’d decided to trust him somewhat, as her attention was kept forward towards the explosion.
“What was that?”
“I don’t know, you smacked it,” Calvin coughed.
“Was— was that supposed to happen?” She asked in a hushed whisper.
“Didn’t happen last time,” he muttered in reply. “Last time it—”
“Why? What happened last time, boy?”
The two of them froze as an unfamiliar voice pierced through the smoke. Calvin got his powers at the ready while Batty lowered her stance, pointing the bat towards the source of the voice.
“You’re scaring the homeowners,” Another eerily familiar voice rang out from inside the cloud. A series of coughs quickly follow, “Ugh— this, dust. Can’t you get rid of this, honey?”
“R—right,” a third voice, a woman’s, made the two tense up.
They were outnumbered.
Wind picked up— or rather, it looked like wind picked up. Only the dust cloud moved, spinning in a cyclone before spreading out of the area, revealing the two parties to each other.
A large man with a brain-in-a-jar for a head. A large woman with a bestial grin. And a petite woman, looking warily at the two of them.
'What the fuck?’