“How the hell are we supposed to find him?”
Currently, as Mr. Brown was helping Lenore to his feet, the four others had grouped. There wasn’t much time, so discussion needed to move quickly.
“I saw him,” Luise said. “After his first jump. It was on that roof.” She pointed to the top of the damaged restaurant. “I can’t remember exactly how his blessing worked, but I do remember after every time he used it, he spat out black goo. If we follow the trail of that, we should be able to figure out where he is, or at least roughly. Since I doubt he could travel without it.”
“If this is gonna get all acrobatic, then I’m out,” Honey said, holding up a finger. “Y’all have fun.”
“No, hold on,” Hanson said. “Honey, go check the dropoff spot. He’s doing this for money, and once he gets it, he’ll have no reason to keep the hostages alive.”
“Whatever.”
“Cool,” Hanson said. Then he turned to Luise. “Point the way.”
As the two started hopping onto the side of the building and pulling themselves up, Lance sighed. He was standing next to Honey, who was looking at him with a pout.
“Huh? Shouldn’t you hurry up?”
“I hate this part.”
“Yeah sure, but everyone else thinks it’s funny,” Honey said, taking a step back. The detective had been working against the siblings for a while, though never face to face. Often they had conflicting interests, though. “Come on! Good show! Show me...Nemean!”
“Screw you…” Lance said, taking off his hat and handing it to Honey. “Keep this safe for me, if ya’ don’t mind.”
“Sure, whatever,” she said, placing his oversized hat on her head.
From his holster, Lance drew a large revolver and flicked off the safety. As Honey cheered, he flipped her off, then pressed the barrel to his own skull.
Better get this over before the cops come and get freaked.
“Good morning, Ceryneian.”
He blasted his own brains out.
***
Like the Fragat siblings, Lance Gordon came from an Institute experiment, though his was far more intrusive in nature. It was a collaborative process, where eleven different children were trained in all manner of different things from birth. They each had a unique function, and regiments of training helped to facilitate and perfect those abilities.
Then, their brains were extracted and codified.
From there, the brains were all implanted into a single body, capable of regrowing themselves and shattering on command. The brains all had control of individual body processes, and upon taking control, would alter the main body’s chemistry and physiology.
This creation was called the Hercules Project.
***
Lance’s grey and pink matter showered Honey as her joy turned to annoyance.
From the blasted remains of Lance’s skull, small orbs encased in mucus pushed against each other until a single one rose above the others. The brain inside of the orb started to expand, over and over, until it was nearly the size of a regular brain, and the remaining orbs slowly crawled back down the brainstem. The man’s skull started reforming, and his body started changing.
Normally, Lance was somewhat built. Nothing incredible, but fit enough to have muscles peeking out from his clothes.
But with this transformation, the placement of those muscles began to change. His upper body began to slump, and his legs, quad to calf, started to swell massively in size. They began to tear apart the pants he was wearing, and his bones began to reformat themselves into digitigrade limbs, his ankles rising and toes elongating. The sounds of cracking and warping were very audible, and the crowd that had gathered for the car crash were all now paying attention to the bizarre transformation sequence before them.
When it was finished, Lance looked very different.
His upper body was small and his arms curled in, holding his hands by his chest. His head was sunked down under his shoulders, and those shoulder blades extended over his head to create a small shield. His stomach was large, and from underneath it, the two massive legs looked like grasshoppers, with five long toes gripping hard enough to the asphalt to tear into it.
This new form cracked it’s toe-knuckles.
“Yo, Honey-baby,” Lance (Ceryneian form) said. “Wanna gimme a kiss before I go?”
“Ehh? You look creepy as hell.”
“Nah, babe, I’m lookin’ goooood!”
A side effect of the transformation was the complete change of personality. Ceryneian Lance was a cocky, childish stud despite his strange looks. All of the normal honor that Hesperides Lance had went out the window. He put one of his legs up against the wall, like an arm, in the way one would to corner a lady for flirtation.
“Come on~, don’t lie, these legs lookin’ juicy! And baby, these hips go bratatatat!”
Honey smiled as her patience was tested.
“That would be great, but your underwear ripped off, and this form seems to be lacking good parts for ‘bratatatat’-ing, so sorry, not interested.”
Her cutting words were enough to make Ceryneian Lance pause, and he looked away.
“Just keep my hat safe.”
After that, he crouched and in a single leap made it to the top of the four story building.
By that time, Luise and Hanson were already on Arco’s trail. As Luise had said, black pools of goo were splattered down on the roof where Arco teleported, and as Hanson looked out across the rooftops, could see more. After that, it became a guessing game. With Lance’s speed and Hanson’s eyes, they were able to spot stain after stain as Arco travelled across the roofs of the city. His trail of black blood.
After a few minutes, it became no longer necessary to chase after Arco’s trail. They could see him standing in the distance, face to face with two other figures.
The Vasquez siblings.
***
--Earlier--
As Arco sucked out Maxwell’s blood, the young man woke. He felt horrible pain in his wrist, and without thinking swung his other hand and body out to strike the person on him. Because of his slow reactions from being concussed, Arco was easily able to hop backwards without being touched, though he stumbled before landing. He almost slipped on the black goo, which hadn’t completely dried.
“Who...who the fuck are you!?” Maxwell shouted, covering his wrist. He sealed the veins, but did a poor job of it. He could no longer feel that hand. Perhaps the concussion was fucking with his ability? “And what the fuck are you doing!?”
Arco was quiet.
Calculating.
“I’m like you, man,” Arco said slowly. “You made a deal with a devil, right? Who was it? Oriaxs? What did they offer you? I felt it when you touched me; you tried something...you tried to fuck with my body.”
Maxwell swallowed. He glanced down at his sister, who was unconscious by this strange man’s feet.
“You’re not one of the kidnappers?”
“No, I think you have me mixed up with them,” Arco said. “Is this your sister? We’ve spent the past day together. I didn’t kidnap her or anything. But please, answer my question. I need to know what you did to me.”
“...yes, I am contracted with a devil. Are you?”
“I am,” Arco said. “You can call me Arco. Max called you Max...is that your name? You two have the same name?”
“Yeah, our dad is a piece of work, ain’t he?”
“Pretty cruel. I’m contracted with Seir and Oriaxs. You see all the black stuff on the ground here? Those are my internal organs and bones. I need it to survive, but using my ability makes me spit it out, and I can only get it back by drinking blood, like a vampire. What about you?”
There was a moment of silence.
“It lets me alter people’s bodies that I touch,” Maxwell finally said. This person didn’t seem bad, but something about him was off. If his concussion was gone, he could figure this out clearly. “What were you doing to my wrist? Sucking blood?”
“I was,” Arco admitted. “The other thing I can do with my ability is teleport. But every time I teleport, I lose more of my insides, and if I run out, I’ll die. You crashed your car, and since you were Max’s brother, I figured I should help you get out of there, That’s why I teleported you.”
Then…
“Then why did you knock me out? Why did you knock out Sis?”
Arco bit his tongue. Much like Max, he was also slightly delirious from having lost so much essence. Now that he knew what Maxwell could do, he understood the dangers the kid possessed. A single touch could mean death, even without internal organs like Arco had. But on the other hand, this kid could be incredibly useful. If he could produce endless amounts of blood…
“I got scared,” Arco finally said. “You called me a kidnapper and I didn’t know what to do. Your sister said someone was after her, so I figured they were after you too.”
“Someone was after her?”
“Yeah, I didn’t pry too much into it, but she said she was on the run from someone, and that people were chasing her. That’s why she needed to change her look. You see her hair is short? We got it cut earlier today.”
Maxwell did see that. His sister was also wearing things she normally wouldn’t. It almost looked like she could be someone else.
He figured that she probably tried to run away from home. Then who did those gangsters kidnap? If this guy was telling the truth, then what was happening? Unable to think straight, Maxwell let out a held breath. He could confirm this if his sister woke up. If only there were some way of getting her up…
A thought appeared in his mind.
“Hey, Arco,” Max started. “I don’t fully trust you, but I have a proposal. I don’t know if there are kidnappers alive, but back when I crashed that car, I saw my dad. He was there to do an exchange. Did you know that?”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Arco shook his head hesitantly.
“I’m going to ask my sister,” Max continued. “Walk away from her. Once she wakes up, I’ll ask her questions to try and corroborate your stories. If they match, and she trusts you, then I will as well. But if not, or you try to do anything fishy, I’ll turn you inside out and spill your melted guts by my feet.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
There wasn’t any choice. Without any fuel in his body, there was nothing Arco could do. Even though he had a hostage right beside him, with this kid now knowing his major weakness, he couldn’t fight back. I mean, all the kid needed to do was touch him. Suddenly, trying to act all friendly and convince him seemed idiotic.
“Alright,” Arco said, walking away from Maxine. He stood opposite her on the roof, diagonally from where Maxwell currently sat. “I’ll stay right here, man. But those guys might be coming, so you should hurry.”
Maxwell didn’t respond as he got up and walked to his sister. He checked her pulse.
Good, she was alive.
While it probably would have been better to try and fix her unconsciousness, Maxwell had no idea how to do so. With his own concussion, he wouldn’t even be confident in that. There was a better idea in his brain.
He held his limp hand over her face and transmuted the entire thing into liquid, which splashed down on her face like a bucket of water.
Maxine gasped and woke up, trying to dry her face. As she did, Maxwell grabbed her.
“Sis! You okay?”
“Max?”
“Yeah,” Maxwell said. He kept an eye on Arco, who hadn’t moved and was just grimacing. “Sis, pay attention. You see Arco over there? Do you know him?”
As she blinked away the bloody water that doused her face, she slowly nodded.
“Yeah,” Maxine said. “Arco, what happened?”
“I-”
“Hold on,” Maxwell said, cutting Arco off. “Is there someone after you? Someone chasing you? That’s what Arco said.”
“That’s…” Maxine started. She looked at Arco, then Maxwell, then looked away. “That’s what I said, yes. Umm...Arco, I gotta tell you something...I’m not exactly who I said I was…”
Before she could say anything, Arco shook his head. A smile had formed on his face, because he finally saw the light. With this, she would help convince Maxwell, and then he’d be able to fill up on blood. Then, so long as he got to the dropoff point, he could collect the money, and everything would be fine. This could all be over. He checked his watch.
10:23.
Plenty of time.
“That’s fine, Max,” Arco said. “I trust you, and I trust your reasons. But we really should get going, the people after us are more dangerous than you think. I’ve met them before, and their acrobats are absolutely evil.”
Maxine had no idea what to say to that, but Maxwell understood. He nodded and got up to stand by Arco and stuck out his handless arm.
“Got it,” Maxwell said. “Drink away. I’ll just make more and more blood, so you should be able to fill up.”
Arco nodded and put his lips to Maxwell’s stump as a slit appeared on it.
Maxine was totally flustered at this.
“Uhhhhhhhhh what’s going on?”
But it wasn’t just that. After a few seconds, as Maxwell stumbled back from having his blood drunk and Arco stood up, in the distance, Maxine saw something strange. Like a humanoid t-rex, some bizarre creature was hopping from building to building slowly getting closer. It crouched down for only a short moment before it happened.
Shards of building blasted off in the opposite direction.
After having just been refreshed, Arco wasn’t ready to react.
Ceryneian Lance appeared over their heads for a split second before zooming by. Soon after, two bodies crashed and rolled on the roof near the group. One was a tall female, lithe and with short hair. The other was a short man with a violent look and a knife in his hand.
“Yo, mistress,” Luise said, stretching her arms out. “I don’t want to be blunt, but you got poor taste in men.”
“Arco...you mother fucker…” Hanson said, cracking his knuckles and smiling cruelly. “Why the fuck you gotta make this so complicated?”
The two, having just appeared with quite an entrance, were frightening as the moonlight cast shadows around their faces. Even though normally those two wouldn’t give off such an imposing aura, in this moment, to those who were watching, they did.
The person most afraid was Arco.
He was completely quiet as Maxine stepped towards her old maid.
“L-Luise? What are you doing here?”
“Huh? Didn’t your bro tell you?” Luise said. “We got kidnapped. Since the kidnappers thought I was you, they grabbed me instead. We got rid of them.”
“Oh, they did?” Maxwell asked, scratching his head with the hand that had just reformed. “Does that mean you were being held prisoner?”
“Yep that was me.”
“So who is your friend?”
“Hanson?” Luise said, looking at him. “My future husband.”
At that, both siblings raised an eyebrow. To them, the conflict seemed to be over. According to Luise, who they trusted, the kidnappers had been dealt with. While the appearance of the two and their vanished t-rex friend had been shocking, it wasn’t dangerous. But the battle between Hanson and Arco had only just begun. Their eyes were locked.
Then, breaking the stalemate, Arco turned and poofed.
When he reappeared a distance away, he thought he was safe.
Until something struck him hard on the side, flinging him into a brick wall and crashing into an apartment.
The thing that kicked him, a humanoid t-rex, stood with one foot in the air, smiling.
“Not getting away that easy, buddy,” Lance (Ceryneian form) said. “I heard you can only teleport where you can see, so that means I just need to keep my eyes peeled.”
A housewife had been cooking dinner when this happened, and she was standing in the corner of her kitchen completely silent as Arco stood. He spat out a black blob and wiped his nose.
“I’ve got no fucking idea who you are man,” Arco said. “But just let me go. I don’t have a problem with you. Honestly, I don’t really wanna mess with Luise or Hanson or any of the others, either. Whatever they told you about me, I just wanna leave it behind.”
“Oh, I see,” Lance said. He nodded. “Okay. I’m still going to beat you up, though. You tried to extort someone, so I gotta teach you a lesson.”
Arco’s face darkened.
He vanished, then appeared in front of Lance’s face with a knife in hand. One he had taken from the cutting board in the kitchen, and he stabbed it into Lance’s throat before being kicked away. While in the air, Arco spun and teleported himself down onto the roof. He spit out black ooze and more started flowing from his tear ducts and ears.
Lance, on the other hand, put his hand to the bloody wound on his neck. It cut through an artery, and he was probably in trouble. Luckily, it wasn't the destruction of his brain.
He kicked off the wall he was standing on, virtually vanishing like Arco, until he stalled right behind the teleporter. He stomped his foot down, but it wasn’t fast enough. Arco shifted himself to a different roof, and when Lance leapt to that roof, Arco teleported again. By that time, Arco spewed out more black goo and began to realize what their plan was. Burn him out of fuel. He needed to use a nearby pole to steady himself.
The next time he saw Lance, he teleported.
And appeared with a light pole stabbing directly through Lance’s stomach. Yes, Arco had teleported along with an entire pole, forcing the fixture to appear in his enemy’s body. It was a powerful move, but it had its consequences.
Both men dropped at the same time, though Lance got caught between two buildings as the pole got wedged. As his consciousness started to fade, he pressed his revolver to his skull.
“Good morning, Hippolyta.”
Arco crashed down bouncing from roof to roof and ended up barely surviving his fall by landing in a dumpster. As he lifted his head, fuel spilled from his body freely, and he felt his energy drop. But even though this was a ton of energy to burn at once, he was still fine, thanks to all the blood he drank before. So long as he didn’t push it more.
There was a gunshot from above, and Arco flinched.
But no bullets came.
After a few minutes went by, Arco got up. He was swaying back and forth, unable to keep himself focused, but that was fine. He fell backwards out of the dump.
Ah.
Laying on his back, he could see the moon, and there was someone silhouetted by it, slowly dropping down from the rooftops with a look of finality on their face.
***
“Wait, Luise, you know Arco?” Maxine asked as her old maid helped her down from the rooftop. “Where from?”
“Ehhh~ it was a long time ago,” Luise replied. “Back in those days, there were a group of us who worked together. Hanson and Honey were part of it too.”
“Hanson is the guy you’re gonna get married to, but Honey is…? The t-rex flying thing?”
“Ha. Not exactly, but I’ll tell her you said that.”
“Wait. That sounds like a bad thing.”
“Yeah, back in those days, we were young. A bunch of teenage orphans with skills,” Luise started. “We met each other in the slums, and we all sort of got along. I mean, each of us had pretty strong personalities, but at the very core, we needed money and food and shelter, so we decided to work together. Arco was one of us. And he was a pretty cool guy too, at the time. Really hated rich people and the nobility, so he was kinda an extremist.
“Of course, we all had things we hated, and since all of us were dirt poor, the wealthy were our biggest targets. Don’t tell anyone, but I used to be a pretty good robber. I gave it all up for the normal working life, since it was dangerous, but I don’t think Arco ever did. To him, working normally was never a possibility. You see, while all of us had pretty tragic backstories, his was probably the worst of us all.
“Let’s see how much I can recall. Okay, basically, he was born on the black market. Quite literally, he was born as a product, and from his very birth, he was raised for a sole purpose. He was a child prostitute, and got sold around along with a group of other children to be played with. While he would never go into the specifics of it, he apparently escaped after one of the men who bought him had a heart attack during the middle of a session. After that, Arco lived on the streets like a regular urchin, until at some point, he made a deal with a devil and obtained his blessings.
“Eventually, he met up with us and we formed our little group. We ran around for quite some time, and not gonna lie, we had a name for ourselves in the underworld. Honest to god big shots, though I was pretty much just along for the ride. But unfortunately, good things like that don’t seem to last. I don’t know what came over him, but one night, after completing a really successful heist, he came into my room and attacked me. At the time I was pretty shaken up about it, but I got over it pretty quickly. I don’t remember it super well, but he was caught doing it, and one of the other members took it really poorly.
“Jay Thoren was our leader. Like you guys, he was from a rich family, but they got destroyed when he was young and he was forced on the streets. Despite coming from a good home, he fit in along with the rest of us, and didn’t seem any different. He was a good guy, and he was really good with people. After seeing what Arco did to me, Jay got more mad than he had ever been before, and he confronted Arco. I didn’t watch them fight, but it didn’t end well.
“When anyone got there, Jay was dead and Arco was standing over his body. He ran off before we could say anything, and we haven’t talked to him since. After that, one of the other members, Bee, decided she was gonna leave too. Wanted to explore the wastelands of Russia, she said. Hanson and Honey decided to keep doing our thing, and I decided to grow up and get a real job. Or, well, a few real jobs. Bounce through ‘em and all. But yeah, that’s about it. In the end, I don’t think he’s such a bad guy, but I don’t think he’s one who’ll ever be happy.”
***
“Hey fucker,” Hanson said, splashing down in a puddle of black ooze. “What’s up?”
“God damnit, man,” Arco replied. “Give me a fucking break. I just got done fighting for my life, and now you’re here for a piece?”
“Ha. Don’t try and play the ‘I’m wounded’ card. I’m not at 100% either,” Hanson said. He held up this still regenerating arm. He had his thumb and pointer finger, but otherwise his hand was a pink stump. “That makes this a bit fair, no?”
“Can’t we just reschedule this to when we’re both good?”
“Not going to happen. I don’t think I can ever be comfortable on these streets with you around. Not after seeing that.” Hanson pointed above at the regenerating fleshy blob that was Lance (Hippolyta form).
“Hey, if it makes you feel better, I didn’t even know if that would work,” Arco said. “Last ditch move.”
“Now that you do, it means anyone you want could die instantly. If you think I’m going to let you live with that sort of power, you’re fucking crazy. Scum like you can’t be trusted.”
Arco’s smile faded.
“I didn’t mean to get near any of you. If I had known Max was one of your friends, I would have stayed away.”
“That’s not the problem. The problem is you’re still in District 5.”
“You know I don’t have papers to cross the border.”
“How the fuck do you need papers? Just go illegally. You’re making excuses like I’m supposed to feel sorry for you. You’re a fucking rapist.”
“That…” Arco started. The word ‘rapist’ made his energy drain. “Look...I didn’t…”
“You didn’t what!?” Hanson took a step forward. “Didn’t think? Didn’t give a fuck? What kind of excuse are you gonna give me that precludes me busting your skull against the pavement?” He took another step forward.
Arco didn’t answer.
“Well, truthfully, I couldn’t care less what you say,” Hanson said. “Everyone else seems to have forgiven you, but I can’t. Maybe after your body is devoured by roaches I’ll feel good. Until that point, there isn’t a single thing you can do that would redeem yourself. You don’t give a shit about anyone other than yourself, and the only reason this makes you feel bad is because you’re gonna get killed ‘cuz of it. Pathetic.”
Hanson was now standing face to face with Arco, even though the former was quite a few centimeters shorter.
“But there’s your fuckin’ chance. If I’m the only one who won’t forgive you, all you need to do is kill me. Then all your troubles will wash away.”
Arco took a slow step back, and halfway through it, Hanson shoved him back
“Are you gonna say something? Or do I get to kill you without hearing you beg for your life? I was expecting more out of you. If I’m forced to drag this out any longer I’ll start to feel like the bad guy, and if I become the bad guy, I’m not just gonna kill you easy. I’ll drag it out as long as possible, and make you beg for death. Because you told me what awaits you in hell, I’ll happily send you there with a smile on my face. What was it? Half your body in the void of darkness and the other half used as a toilet? Seems fitting for you.”
Hanson grabbed Arco by the throat and pinned him to a wall. The anger that once sat in the short man’s eyes had simmered, but it was still rage. Instead of being energizing, now his revenge was just boring.
“Well, any last words?”
“No…” Arco said, coughing tar down after the pressure on his throat. He stared back at the fiery eyes as he closed his own. “I couldn’t ever tell her I was sorry...please, do it for me…”