Now, Earth
Tessa shot her kanabo straight as an arrow down into the crocodilian beast’s plate-sized eye.
The crack of her metal weapon accelerating past the sound barrier in a dozen feet was drowned out by the beast’s roar.
Practice made perfect. Everyone from her father to Ms. Gozen was right. She had made the shot while flying through the air and with only moonlight to see by.
Now all she had to do was stick the landing.
The beast thrashed around in its death throes.
Tessa narrowly avoided its tail as she somersaulted forward and landed in a crouch.
“Die already!” Tessa snapped.
The beast was still thrashing about. She wouldn’t be able to retrieve her precious weapon until it stopped.
The mist all around her began to dissipate.
“Shit,” Tessa whispered. She heard the fishmen moving around just out of sight.
She felt at her bloody chin. The bleeding had mostly slowed to a trickle. The blood that had dripped down the front of her chest was sticky and cold. It had soaked her sports bra, which was unpleasant.
She went through a physical assessment. Aside from the wounds at her chin and collarbone the rest of her spinebolt wounds were basically superficial scratches. Her dad-made armor did its job. Maybe she’d ask him for a full body setup next time. It’d be awesome if he could figure out how to make Vibranium or maybe Adamantium.
The beast’s movements finally dwindled down to slight twitching.
Tessa rushed for her weapon.
She tried not to look at the beast’s ruined eye as she fished her kanabo out. The squelching sounds were disgusting as was the feeling of having your arm elbow deep inside a giant monster’s eye.
She got it out just in time as the mist vanished to reveal her surrounded by fishmen.
Though the dead beast made for a good wall to fight with her back against she was entirely exposed to the front.
Her only chance was to protect her vitals and let the fishmen loose a volley. Once they needed to reload she’d rush them and proceed with the smashing.
She was surprised to find that she wasn’t being shot.
The fishmen approached her with what looked like man-catchers and nets.
“Oh…” Tessa’s eyes narrowed, “you pervy shits.”
There had been many discussions about what the fishmen had done with the women and girls that they had kidnapped a couple of years ago. The possibilities ranged from bad to horrific.
She considered letting them capture her so she could get to the inner lair of the enemy and proceed to kick their asses. Then she got scared.
A fishman threw a net at her.
Tessa tried to push it away with her magnetic power.
The net didn’t react.
She had to dodge to the side with superhuman quickness.
No metal. The fishmen came prepared.
A fishman thrust a man-catcher at her neck.
Tessa broke it with her kanabo.
“Surrender,” Tessa said contemptuously, “or I’ll break you all.”
Tessa felt around at her belt. No luck. She was out of ammunition.
“You’ve been honored by the Deep Azure’s selection.”
A man’s stupid voice sounded out from somewhere within the gathered fishmen.
Tessa couldn’t quite make out where it came from.
“Is that a weirdo cultist? Why don’t you come out. Quit hiding or is the Dick Azure too weak to protect you?”
The fishmen bristled at that.
Tessa smirked. She was going to enjoy smashing them all, so much.
“Fifty of you fishy punk bitches and you still can’t take me on. I can see the fear in your eyes. Smell it in your fishy-ness,” she made a face. “Disgusting by the way.”
“Young people, so disrespectful. Ignorant of their actual worth.”
The voice sounded so old and stupid. It made Tessa instinctively want to tune it out, but she forced herself to listen.
“It’s a good thing we’re willing to educate you.”
“Blah, blah, blah. You just sound dumb, you know that right?”
“Wait… wait, why am I arguing with a girl.” The man cleared his throat. “I will enjoy watching you learn your lessons… repeatedly.”
“What’re you? A disgusting pedo? Yeah, you sound like one. Like to watch? Who the fuck says that? I’ll tell you who… a shit pedo that’s about to get his face smashed in. Fifty fishmen? A hundred? A thousand? They’re not going to save you from me. I officially declare a quest. I shall smash the pedo in the face!”
“You can’t do that,” the man’s voice was indignant. “You can’t just declare a Quest!”
Tessa cackled. “Dumbass. Hey, fishies? What’s it like to take orders from a dumbass loser?”
“Enough! This is ridiculous. I will not be talked to this way by a dumb bitch, who doesn’t know her place.”
“Fu—”
The man started chanting something in a language that made Tessa’s skin crawl.
This was bad.
She searched for him frantically, while warding off the fishmen trying to capture her.
They did a good job of keeping her at bay with their man-catchers and not letting her smash them with her kanabo.
A seeping sickness grew in the air a few dozen feet above Tessa. It coalesced into a symbol that made her sick to look at. It pulled her eyes toward it despite her effort.
So deep and dark. Like being sucked into a whirlpool.
Her eyelids drooped and her limbs grew heavy.
The man laughed.
Tessa longed to smash his face.
“Where’s your big talk now? See, see. For all your special power, even you can’t resist the Deep Azure! I will be rewarded for this triumph!” the man crowed. “Maybe, I’ll ask for you after you’ve been used up.”
“So gross,” Tessa gagged.
She had to get away. It was getting harder and harder to think and move. She tried to climb up the dead beast’s body. Maybe use it as a platform to jump over the fishmen, but her limbs didn’t obey. She slipped and fell. She lost her grip on her kanabo.
She tried to stay out of the dark hallway, like her Uncle Cal had taught her.
A fishman grew overconfident and got too close.
Tessa grabbed the man-catcher and pulled it in. She grabbed the gills on both side of its neck and ripped.
It was a last gasp borne of stubborn spite.
The fishmen rushed her as one in a rage.
She didn’t feel the hits as she finally fell down that hallway.
A chime sounded in her ear.
You have failed a Quest.
Escape the Scions of the Deep Azure’s ambush.
Congratulations!
A Quest has been altered.
Escape the Scions of the Deep Azure’s ambush has been replaced.
Escape from the Scions of the Deep Azure’s captivity.
Success Parameters: Escape.
Failure Parameters: Death or a fate worse than death.
Reward: 45000 Universal Points.
Failure: You will die or suffer a fate worse than death at the hands of the Scions of the Deep Azure.
You will accept.
----------------------------------------
“Mom, we have to go back for Tessa!” Veronica pleaded.
Megan tried not to panic.
Two choices.
Go back for her oldest daughter and risk her youngest daughter.
Keep going. Come back with more people. Nila. And save Tessa.
Megan gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles.
She didn’t know what to do.
And she’d never know.
The choice was taken out of her hands.
She slowed to turn the corner and something slammed into the driver’s side.
Her truck spun and hit the light pole. Then hit a short wall and rolled over, landing on its roof.
Megan’s eyes rang and her eyes were unfocused. Dimly, she realized that she was upside down. Her seatbelt kept her fixed to the seat.
She felt strong hands rip the seat belt and pull her out.
“Mom! Mom!” Veronica dragged Megan over to a tree.
They were in a park. A wide open field of overgrown grass. A baseball diamond was behind a set of basketball courts.
Megan blinked. Her vision cleared. There was a small fire coming out of the bottom of her overturned truck. She felt like crying. That truck had been with her since high school. Her thoughts were off. Part of her knew that she had more important things to worry about than a truck.
“Here! Watch Twinkle Star for me,” Veronica placed a small bag in Megan’s lap. “I have to fight a super mutant.”
“Super— What?” Megan tried to stand, but Veronica firmly, but gently kept her down.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got this!”
Her daughter grinned, but Megan was a mother. She knew her daughter. She didn’t miss the slightly wide eyes and lips that quivered. Veronica was scared.
“Use your healing spells,” Veronica said. “I think you hit your head.”
A bellow shattered the silent night and heavy steps made the ground shake.
“Time to dispense justice,” Veronica nodded, as if to bolster herself. “I can do this. I can do this,” she whispered.
Megan felt her head in confusion. Her hand came back covered in blood. “Healing…” she frowned. Where was her baby going? Veronica wasn’t even fifteen yet and she was going to fight a super… mutant? What the heck was that? Megan couldn’t recall that being a thing.
Megan placed a hand on her head and said the word. A soft glow suffused her hand and transferred to her head. It was difficult to maintain the concentration and intent to direct the healing spell. Slowly, but surely the fog and confusion lifted.
It was just in time to watch her youngest daughter square off against a hideously musclebound man dressed in rags.
“Oh no…” Megan’s heart dropped. She recognized him or rather his type. He looked just like the people she had to autopsy from the first encounter with the Scions of the Deep Azure cultists. Except this one was a lot bigger and looked less deformed in symmetrical terms.
Veronica pointed at the man, the super mutant. “Bang!”
The behemoth staggered and spasmed momentarily, but kept coming.
“Uh oh.”
“I bring… you come,” the super mutant said in a deep voice as it swiped at Veronica with a hand almost as big as her torso.
Veronica dodged back. “Ewww… no.” She poked him in the face with her staff. Then hit him with another disruptive electromagnetic pulse to the brain to make send him into spasms.
Veronica used the second to get behind the behemoth and crack the side of his knee with a swing.
The loud crack echoed out across the field.
Veronica had broken a tree once with the same kind of strike. Granted it wasn’t a big tree, but it was young and healthy. She had felt really bad about it.
The super mutant was unmoved. He spun around with surprising quickness and swiped at her again.
Veronica ducked under the meaty hand and jabbed her staff into his armpit.
The super mutant grunted. Whether in pain or annoyance was unclear.
“You annoying.”
That answered the question.
“And you smell.” Veronica snapped her staff out again and smacked the super mutant right between the eyes.
He barely budged.
“I’s felt nothings.”
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Round and round they went.
The giant and the tall for her age girl danced in the moonlight.
Well one danced. The other lumbered around with all the grace of a drunk buffalo.
Clumsily Grasping hands were stung by graceful and stinging strikes.
Years of dedicated practice showed true.
Veronica moved with fundamentals mixed with flair made possible by her superhuman physical attributes.
She peppered the super mutant with brain blasts while striking all over his massively, over-muscled body. The latter had yet to show on the behemoth, while the former was only marginally effective.
Veronica could’ve kept it up all night and into the next day. She could’ve kept the super mutant busy until help arrived. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what she wanted. She needed to get back to her sister’s side and this stupid super mutant was being a stupid butt.
It just wouldn’t fall to her Justice Blasts, which is what she called her ability when no one was listening.
A robed figure approached from the darkened street.
Help had finally arrived.
“Crap.” Veronica knew that whoever it was wasn’t her reinforcement. She sprinted away from the super mutant. Robes meant fish cult, probably. They did bad magic. She needed to cut that off. She pointed at the robed figure. “Bang!”
The robed figure raised a hand.
Strange symbols of the deepest, darkest blue flared to life for a few seconds at the same time that Veronica had expected her power to give the cultist a seizure.
They made Veronica nauseous. Fortunately the effect faded at the same time the symbols did.
The robed figure pulled its hood back to reveal herself. “The Deep Azure beck—”
“Nope, not listening.” Veronica had to dodge the grasping super mutant, but she pointed at the woman cultist.
The symbols flared again.
The cultist raised her arms to the sky and chanted in an indecipherable language.
Another bigger symbol appeared almost directly above Veronica.
She tried again.
No luck.
The magic shield around the cultist held against Veronica’s power.
She tried to ignore the symbol taking shape above. It was futile. It was like swimming against the tide. Inevitable.
“Veronica!”
Her mother’s voice.
She was dimly aware of the super mutant reaching out to her.
A small and bright, burning orb flew through the dark sky and exploded on the magic symbol.
Veronica blinked. Things suddenly became clear with the dissipation of the symbol.
She was on her back for some reason. She kicked the super mutants hand away and rolled deeper into the knee-high grass.
The super mutant chased after her.
“Hey, ugly!”
The super mutant turned toward the sound of an angry woman’s voice.
“Chin up!”
Nila crushed the super mutant’s chin with a two-handed, home run-style swing.
“Aunt Nila!” Veronica smiled.
Her reinforcements had arrived.
----------------------------------------
Nila was halfway to Watch Commander Demi Lawrence’s door when a severe voice stopped her.
“Chen… just wait a goddamn second.”
Nila shook her head.
Keisha had just finished her report about their desperate battle against cultists and a fishman. How the cultists displayed new, disturbing abilities. Fleshcraft, they had called it. How there was evidence that forty or more fishmen had been summoned so close to Davis-controlled territory. How they could be anywhere by now, doing who knows what sorts of evil.
Keisha had lost two of her squad to bring the news back.
“I heard an alarm.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” Demi scowled.
“It was faint. It just stopped. I’m pretty sure I know where the alarm came from.”
“The Cruces… you know as well as I do that the kids can handle themselves.”
“They hit the alarm,” Nila said with finality. “That’s enough for me.” She turned and walked out the door. Only to run into the douchebro.
The man collided with Nila.
She stumbled back a step or two, while he windmilled his arms in a mostly successful attempt to keep from falling on his ass.
“Jesus… you’re like a brick wall. How are you so tiny, yet…” the man shook his head. “Commander Lawrence, just spotted three flares!”
Demi shot to her feet and immediately started donning her combat gear, tac-vest modified with steel plates, M4 carbine, a semi-auto shotgun, Glock-17, along with a machete and a steel, riot-style shield for good measure.
“Where?” Demi asked, but she already knew that she wasn’t going to like the answer.
“West. The watchtower near the cemetery.”
“That’ll be Team F.C.W.R and Mads,” Nila said.
Demi nodded.
“That’s in the direction of the Cruces’ home. I’m going,” Nila said as she strode out of the office.
“Wait!” Demi turned to Keisha and the douchebro. “High alert.” She chewed the inside of her mouth a moment. “Send out the call. We’re bunkering. There are fishmen out there. Our patrols and sentries will get eaten up in small numbers. Gather everyone here. Move in numbers to respond to threats. Defense is the word.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Keisha said.
Demi followed Nila outside and just barely caught her before she ran off.
“Hold it, Chen! I’m coming with you.”
“You’ll slow me down. I can run there faster than you can drive.”
“And run right into a possible forty on one fight. Those kids are tough and good. They won’t go down quick or easy.”
“Fine. You drive.”
The pair cut through the road as fast as Demi could go without crashing.
They got to the watchtower in record time.
“You fired the flares?” Demi yelled out the window at the young men and one young woman at the tower.
“He did it,” Johnny pointed up at Bastien.
“Bastien got a hit with his Sense Evil ability,” Gene said.
The young man in question climbed down from the tower. His face was even paler than usual. “It’s gotten stronger.”
“Can you tell where it’s coming from?” Nila itched to get out of the car and just run to the Cruces’ home. The longer she waited the more the dread grew in her stomach.
Little did she know that the same exact feeling grew in them all. Yet, for some reason, none voiced it out loud. Perhaps they thought acknowledging it would bring it from the realm of feeling into reality.
“There was a spike almost like a shout or a flash of light, like someone shouting from that direction.” Bastien pointed to the west.
Nila cursed exactly where she expected, dreaded.
“Alright, you head back to base,” Demi said to the young people.
“No way. We’re going with you,” Gene said. Then realized he what he had done. His eyes grew wide and his face grew red. He cursed his fair skin.
“Yeah,” Olo gulped. “This sounds really dangerous. You’ll need our help.”
“Can’t believe I’m saying this,” Johnny mumbled, “we’ll go anyways… so you might as well give us a ride.”
“No,” Nila said flatly.
“Okay, get in,” Demi jabbed a thumb to the back of the truck.
Gene, Olo, Bastien, Johnny and Mads all climbed aboard.
“If you get them killed—”
“What of it, Chen? They’re not kids anymore. They’ve trained hard and fought hard. You can’t hold their hands forever.”
5th street would’ve been pitch black if it hadn’t been for the moon and clear skies.
Demi floored it. She had to risk running into monsters or mutant animals. Time was of the essence. If anything bad happened to the Cruces… well, it’d mean that they were all screwed.
“There,” Nila pointed to something well outside the range of the headlights. “Flickering light, like a small fire.”
Demi squinted. She couldn’t see anything.
“It’s at the park.” Nila knew every bit of Davis from years of patrols. Even in the dark.
As they drew closer Nila’s heart sank.
She recognized Megan’s truck. It was upside down and on fire. She was out the door before Demi stopped the truck.
Further inside the park Veronica battled a giant monstrosity of a man, while a robed woman held her hands up to the sky.
The floating symbol made her sick and caused her to slow.
“Oh man, I can feel the magic, bad, really bad,” Gene said.
“That’s it. That’s what spiked. It’s evil, pure evil,” Bastien sounded like he was about to cry.
“We’re not going to be stopped by some magic skywriting bullshit,” Demi spat. The grimace on her face betrayed the truth of what she felt.
“It’s still forming. I think I can disrupt it with more magic. Just need to get closer,” Gene staggered then fell. “I don’t think I can get there though. It’s making me dizzy, sick and I feel like I may poop myself for some reason.”
“Heh,” Johnny said. “I’d laugh, but me too.”
Nila grit her teeth and kept moving forward. “You do what you can.” Veronica needed her. She dropped her shield, its weight had become too much, to tighten her grip on her rough baseball bat-like metal club.
“I’ll get you there,” Olo picked Gene up in his arms and forged after Nila.
“Ah man,” Gene said weakly, “not princess-style”
Olo ignored his friend. He was big and strong. His friends needed him. He used every bit of his Enhanced Strength and Enhanced Stamina to get Gene close enough.
Gene raised a shaking hand at the symbol that continued to coalesce. It would be completely solid soon and he felt it in his bones. Instinctive knowledge through the magic that ran through his body that allowing the magic symbol to fully enter reality would be disastrous for them.
“Fireball!”
The glowing orb streaked across the night sky and struck the symbol.
It dissipated and along with it the debilitating effects.
Nila broke into an all-out sprint. Superhuman muscles propelled her past the speed limit.
Demi shot the cultist with controlled bursts of automatic gunfire from fifty yards away. The cultist’s magical shield held until Mad’s added her shotgun slugs to the barrage.
The shield cracked then failed.
“I need her alive!” Demi barked at the darkness.
Johnny seemed to appear out of thin air as he let out a breath into the cultist’s ear. He wrapped his arms around her neck and head. “You got it,” he whispered as he squeezed his arms and cutoff the supply of blood to the woman’s brain. She was out in seconds. “That’s the first time I’ve actually got to do that in real combat and they said Jiu Jitsu was useless against magic,” he tsked as he made sure to restrain the cultist.
Nila rushed at the huge man going after Veronica. “Hey ugly!” The man turned at the sound of her voice. “Chin up!”
Nila cracked the huge man with her best shot.
“Aunt Nila!” Veronica smiled.
The huge man spat out some teeth and smiled at Nila. A grotesque look she’d not soon forget.
“You is small, but old. Not small and girl. No need catch.”
The man moved quicker than his massive bulk suggested was possible. He punched a crater in the ground where Nila had just been.
She struck the man’s wrist. The reverberations traveled up her club to her hands and arms.
“Aunt Nila!” Veronica shouted excitedly. “Team up!” She pointed a finger and the man stumbled.
“What the heck is this thing? It almost looks like those—” Nila scrambled back to avoid a jumping stomp.
“It’s a super mutant,” Veronica said.
That simultaneously explained everything and nothing.
“Zap its brain again.”
Veronica complied and turned the super mutant’s attacking lunge into a clumsy trip.
Nila’s bat met the behemoth’s face at the end of the line.
“Boom!” Veronica cheered.
“Focus!” Nila snapped.
“Sorry.”
The super mutant choked on the blood from his smashed nose, but still came on strong.
Nila dodged out of the way. She couldn’t hit back. It was taking all of her and concentration to avoid getting smashed.
One slip up and—
Nila stumbled.
Something in the tall grass. Maybe an animal bone or a frisbee from a safer time. It didn’t really matter.
The momentary distraction allowed the super mutant to land a bone crushing punch on Nila’s chest.
She went flying into a tree twenty feet away. She struggled to breathe through the pain in her chest.
“Aunt Nila!” Veronica lunged at the super mutant and stabbed the end of her staff into the middle of its spine.
“Annoying.” The super mutant turned.
“Shut up!” Veronica brought her staff up between the behemoth’s legs with a loud thwack.
The super mutant shrugged. “Is no hurt.” It grabbed the staff and walked westward, pulling Veronica along. “We go.”
Veronica dug her heels, but couldn’t stop him. So, she did the only she could and let go.
The super mutant dropped the staff and gave chase as Veronica ran away and led it in a meandering path across the field.
Nila felt like she was going to die.
Until she didn’t. In fact she felt better. Healed.
She looked up and noticed Megan kneeling over her with glowing hands.
“Thanks,” Nila said.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Megan said. “We need to kill that thing fast. Tessa’s in danger.”
“What happened?”
“Fishmen attacked the house.”
Nila got to her feet. “That thing is impossible to hurt.”
They watched the super mutant hot on Veronica’s heels.
“My babies…”
“They’ll be fine.” Nila patted Megan’s shoulder. She wasn’t sure she believed her own words.
----------------------------------------
Now, Threnosh World
“Daaadddd! Ricky’s drooling on Ms. Marvel!”
“Huh?” Cal was too busy dodging the Rhino to look over.
“She can’t fight the Brood with drool all over her!”
“Huh?”
That was a fair point.
Cal paused his game and looked over.
His youngest son was indeed showering his older daughter’s action figure.
“Ricky! No!”
And now he had her leg in his mouth.
Alin went to pull the figure out.
“Wait,” Cal stopped her before she accidentally or purposefully hurt her younger brother.
Cal gently pried Ms. Marvel loose from the slobbering giant’s maw, wiped her on his shirt and handed her over to her rightful overlord.
“God, so gross!” Alin made a face.
“Yeah that’s true, but then again he’s a baby. So…” Cal shrugged.
Ricky gurgled and blew out a slobber bubble.
“See… he gets it.”
“Can you keep him under control, at least?”
“Young lady, that is not a nice way to talk about your brother,” Cal said absentmindedly.
The Rhino was kicking his butt. It seemed like he was always a button press behind the action. Things were moving too fast on the screen. Apparently having kids made him suddenly suck at video games.
“Daaadddd!”
Speak of the devil.
“Eh?”
“You really should pay closer attention to your child,” Alin said.
Cal’s skin crawled.
That… voice.
Not his daughter.
Cal blinked.
What daughter?
He didn’t have any kids.
Did he?
No. Definitely not?
Cal looked down to where Alin was playing on the living room floor.
His daughter looked at him with piercing eyes that didn’t blink. Without taking her eyes off of him, she pointed to the hallway.
Cal followed her direction almost against his own volition.
Ricky, his son? Ricky was out of sight. There was a trail of slobber, slick and wide. Too wide.
Cal reluctantly got up off the couch. His game forgotten. On the screen a game over flashed after the Rhino plowed Spider-Man into a wall.
When Cal reached the hallway he looked back.
Alin, his daughter? His daughter was gone. There was no evidence that she had been there. No action figures, no tablet, no tray of cookies.
The hairs on Cal’s arm stood on end. A shiver ran through him. Confusion and dread swirled in his mind.
The slime trail led up the stairs.
Cal blinked.
The slobber trail was sticky under his bare feet.
He climbed the stairs one agonizing step at a time. Each creak of the wood had him flinching. Ready to turn around and flee.
To where?
He didn’t know.
Anywhere would’ve been better.
Yet, he found himself compelled to continue.
His house felt strange. It was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Parts he recognized and others he didn’t.
The second floor hallway was narrow and long. It was dark, except for where he stood.
The trail led left. Toward the kids’ rooms.
Cal crept closer. Each step felt like an hour.
His house smelled strange. A mixture of blood, sweat and something else. He gagged. Something rotten.
The trail led into one of the bedrooms.
Ricky’s or Alin’s, he was struck by the fact that he didn’t know.
It was worse when he stepped inside. He didn’t recognize anything. Not the bed, nor the pictures and posters on the walls and dresser. Scattered toys littered the floor.
When he took a step they seemed to flow out of the way.
Cal blinked.
The distortion triggered something. A memory. A realization.
The trail led to the closet.
“How bout, fuck this!”
Cal remembered. He didn’t have kids.
He pulled the blanket from over his mind for an instant.
The closet exploded in his face.
He lost his grip again.