Arc 7 Healthy Green Glow
Chapter 19 Interlude: Where The Wild Turnip Grows
The small frame of a girl jumped down from the above sewage pipe. She was covered from head to toe in a thick rubbery suit, save the clear visor over her face. Her cold, emotionless, blue eyes scanned over the glowing water and she motioned with her hand. More armored figures jumped down totaling at about twenty. In the lead was a tall bulky man, he must have been more than six and a half feet tall. He gracefully landed like a cat, despite his cumbersome appearance. After him a much shorter man jumped down, he was of average height, which made him the second shortest in the whole group. The rest were just abnormally tall, each about six foot or more.
“Boris, we appear to be off course,” said a deep, gruff voice, yet it originated from the little girl.
“Da, systems are having trouble getting reception due to radiation interference,” replied the largest man.
“Fold you still have that portal open? We will need it for quick escape, leave no witnesses,” commented the girl.
“Right Boss, it is connected to the staging point.”
“Good, good. Keep it that way and I will let Shadow out of the Turnip room.”
“I still don’t get why you put her in there.”
“To teach lesson.”
“Alright Boss. Just go easy on us.”
“Just don’t fuck up or you be my new Suka.”
Boris stared at his wrist, a holographic map flickered before stabilizing. “Molotov, we appear to be East of our target location. Shortest route is by large underground reservoir. I believe it is called the Toxic Sewer Pond.”
“Da. Move.” Shortly said the girl darting ahead.
They kept pace, moving through the dank tunnels. Giant rats scurried at their approach, screeching and hissing. Their powerful muscles bristled under their mangy, scarred fur. Several lunged at Molotov and she swiped her hand, sending blood, gore, and shattered bones splattering all over the wall. In just a slap she had obliterated five giant rats. The rest ran in terror, screaming as they left trails of urine in their wake.
She rounded the next corner, slowing for a moment at the immense flesh that protruded from all around. The disgusting, mucus dribbling membrane shifted with life. She eyed it for a moment and poked it with her foot. Tendrils lunged out, but she was far faster dodging away. It was a Tubifex Worm Conglomerate. She could simply dodge her way through, but it would be more fun to kill it. The sadistic little girl pulled out a flamethrower from her utility belt and let loose a line of fire. It seared the flesh, making it quake and squirm. The creatures screamed and writhed in repulsive undulating motions. She poured more and more fire on it. Watching it burn with a child like obsession, an evil grin plastered across her face.
“Die worms!” Laughed Molotov as the others caught up.
Seeing what she was doing, they pulled out their weapons and opened fire, sending lasers and armor piercing explosive rounds through the screaming mass of creatures. They kept firing until the wails of agony stopped. Molotov grunted and gave a head motion, moving forward through the still burning lumps of oozing flesh. The worms squirmed below their treads.
It did not take long to traverse through the remains of the worm colony. The tunnel opened up into a vast cavern. The ceiling rose more than fifty feet high. Glowing fungus illuminated the shadows. There was hardly anywhere that was not revealed. The ground where they stood looked out over the sprawling mass of liquid. The concrete dipped down, vanishing below the bubbling ooze.
Molotov stood near the edge of the lake. She looked out over the vast expanse of glowing water. Truly, this was a foul place where the nuclear waste congregated. It was hard to imagine that anything could survive in there and yet life stirred. She eyed the rippling water, leaning over to get a better look. An eye opened, it was probably about the size of a manhole cover. Before anyone could even react the largest crocodile to walk the land since dinosaurs ruled the world emerged. This was no ordinary beast, it was a mutated monstrosity. It lunged forward lightning fast. Jaws large enough to swallow a bus whole gaped. Acid spewed forth from the ends of thick tendrils deep within the mouth. Molotov dodged to the side as did everyone else. They had managed to avoid the deadly attack.
It singled her out as the weakest and easiest prey due to her size. The maw slammed shut around her. Boris tackled it and held it from leaping back into the water. Team Wolf fired their weapons, but the lasers merely glanced off the thick hide and the bullets harmlessly crumpled up. The scales were too thick to be pierced! Boris readied himself to receive the attack head on. He punched it, denting in the scales. This was truly a monstrous beast, not even Boris’s manly muscles could break through. It shook and threw him off. The beast swiped with the tail narrowly missing Fold who fell flat to dodge it.
It was a force of nature sending waves of fetid liquid splashing up on the shore. Team Wolf retreated several leaps to dodge the corrosive liquid. They fired again, one managed to hit it in the eye. The croc had, had enough and it dived back into the water. Or at the least, it tried to. The side of the mouth burst open, showering bone fragments and teeth and gore. Molotov climbed her way out, ripping off a tentacle that had coiled around her. She grabbed the whimpering beast by the jaw and dragged it fully onto the shore. It was huge. Must have been more than eighty feet long. Her grip tightened and she pried the mouth open, snapping the muscles that held it shut. She kept going until the head split in half with a sickening crunch. It cried helplessly and she punched up through the under part of the head. The eyeballs shot out of their sockets and the brains oozed out like tears of blood.
“Bloody ‘ell! She killed Old Stumpy. What is this pint-sized terror?!” shrilly cried Sheila, having observed the massacre. It couldn’t even be described as a battle.
Nobody seemed to have heard her. Molotov stepped out, wiping her hands with disgust. “Da. Nobody eats me. That will teach you who is Suka! I make shoes and handbag out of you, rest will be rug for living room! Head will go on wall, next to the rest.”
“The rest?” asked Fold.
“Da, Molotov is big game hunter for sport. She has wall of trophies that she has killed with her bare hands. Where will this one go?”
“Right next to Abominable Snowman.”
“Crickey! The Abominable Snowman!?”
They heard that and looked around. “Who said that? I give till count of three to show self or I break you, like spirit of my people.”
Sheila dipped to the side. Hiding from their watchful eyes. She peeked out, “Fuck me sideways. What the fuck is Molotov doing here?! That there is bad news, you guys saw what she did to Old Stumpy.”
“Two.” Said Molotov.
“Let’s leg it boys!” Cried Sheila running for it.
“Three,” sighed Molotov, “Why do they always run? What you think I am not fast?”
Sheila glanced over her shoulder, having turned a corner, the coast was clear. She didn’t stop running though. “Blimey, that was close. Skin of my teeth that was!”
She turned another corner, ducking into the smaller passageway. Molotov was already there waiting. Sheila jumped back when the little girl pounced. Her cat-like reflexes went off and she moved at the slightest provocation. She dodged, hurling herself away from the hug of death. Molotov had just barely missed and got up, wiping the filth from her suit. She took a step and Sheila pointed behind her.
“Look out a Golden Marmoset!” She screamed.
Molotov looked, more intrigued than scared. There was nothing there and the pitter patter of Sheila’s feet running away rose. She had been duped, her teeth clenched with anger. Molotov gave chase easily outpacing Sheila. She could see her clear as day, thanks to the suit’s viewfinder. It was still weird that the woman was flickering in and out of existence. Molotov thought about Supers that she had heard of and were in this city with a power like that. There was only one that came to mind, well on the Hero side. The other would be Shadow, but she was well and taken care of. No, this could only be one person, Sheila. A mercenary from South Africa with quite a kill record.
Molotov came from the ceiling this time, reaching down to grapple up the well endowed woman in a sleeper hold. Sheila reacted as though possessed, diving into a slide below the arms of the little girl. She was on her feet running again before Molotov got down. This was an elusive woman. She smirked, this should be fun to toy with her. If she really wanted it to be over, it would have already been over. But Molotov liked to play with her food. It had been a while since she had this much fun, not since little Vesper was enduring her training. There were crocodiles there too.
Sheila ran scared now, bumbling straight through a huge cheeky cunt spider nest. Her arm got caught and she struggled for a moment, ripping herself free. She picked up bones and scattered objects, hurling them at the spiders above to piss them off. It worked and the giant spiders descended just in time to intercept Molotov. Unfortunately for them, Molotov absolutely hated spiders. A certain Spider Woman would be the culprit as to why. She despised them so much that just seeing so many of them in one place sent her into a blind rage.
She slapped one spider, sending a messy pulp splattering away. Another lunged at her and she grappled the fangs tearing them from the face. She turned them around and stabbed them into the eyes, pushing until they came out the other side of the head. More spiders poured in from all around. Little baby spiders the size of dogs scurried at her, lunging with their fangs bared. She swatted them down like flies. Every smack sent blood and shattered carapaces spiraling away. Their screams of death only enraged the remaining spiders.
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She ripped at their spindly little legs using them against them. She used them like javelins harpooning the Spiders higher up. They tumbled down, knocking loose more. They crashed down in front of her and her fists pummeled into their soft flesh popping them like balloons. Her maniacal grin spread as she kept thrusting her fists into the thoroughly dead spiders. Silk hit her from above, knocking her off balance.
The last spider was the Matriarch a giant, even among these massive creatures. The momma spider was angry that her brood had been massacred. It pointed the huge spinneret and shot silk at her, webbing her arms to her body. It quickly slid down to sink the deadly fangs into its prey. When it got close Molotov burst free to its surprise and dismay as her fist connected with the face and the innards of the spider spurt out like toothpaste being run over by a steamroller.
Molotov took a moment, wiping the spider blood and guts off. Sheila had used that time to gain some distance, having vanished out of earshot. She got to the crossroad. The path went left and right, but where had the quarry escaped to? Molotov got low, tracking the footprints left in the muck. Poor, poor Sheila without her power, she was just a highly trained assassin up against a monster that was faster, smarter, stronger and even more highly trained at killing people than her.
The hunter followed the tracks, winding through the filthy tunnels. It seemed that Sheila knew these tunnels very well. She had led the chase to a somewhat troublesome place. A Tubifex Worm Conglomerate that seemed to have no end. This thing would take forever to burn away and in the meantime, Sheila would escape. Clever girl. Molotov took a moment, stretching before she took the position of a sprinter. With a burst of speed, she took the plunge through the flesh covered corridor. Her feet, powerfully stabbed into the flesh below and before the recoil of the jiggle could even squish in she lunged ahead. Every step propelling her faster and in her wake a sea of stinging tentacles sprung out for prey that was no longer there.
She had gotten serious now, running all out. The middle of the colony appeared before her, a wall of jiggling flesh. The only way passed was to squeeze to the side, but she didn’t bother. Molotov jabbed her fist out and the mass of flesh imploded sending guts and worms and blood everywhere. She steamed ahead at full power like a locomotive of pain. Anything that got in her way was run down like a dog. Sheila was just up ahead, she dove to the side avoiding getting smashed. Molotov kept going, straight into a wall.
“Haha! Fuck you bitch that is a wall! Destinatio… oh, fuck me ded, she went straight through the bloody wall?!”
A wall didn’t matter, she came crashing through, bulldozing into the next tunnel over. She skidded to a halt, realizing that she had gone too far. Molotov poked her head back out of the chasm she had made and saw the fleeting figure of Sheila, darting around the next corner.
“Holy fuck!” Screamed Sheila fleeing.
“You can run, but you can’t hide,” Laughed Molotov, skipping after her prey.
Sheila had fucked up, in her panic to dodge the pain train she took the wrong tunnel and had cornered herself. She backed against the wall clawing at it desperately as though freedom was so close. She turned when the shadows of Molotov covered the wall of the corner. She was just out of sight. But her voice was not. Between a rock and a hard place she pulled out the sniper rifle off of her back and leveled it. She sat there waiting, teeth chattering.
The voice of a little girl sung out joyously, not at all appropriate for what horrors lay ahead, “One, two, I am coming after you.”
She skipped a little closer, “Three, four, I am at your door.”
Her fingers appeared on the wall and she slowly emerged like some horror movie monster, “Five, six, I hope you like dicks.”
Sheila didn’t hesitate for a moment and fired. It didn’t matter that it was a looked like a child. If anything that made her more jumpy on the trigger finger. However, this was no child it was a criminal mastermind responsible for the deaths of untold numbers. Molotov’s head kicked back from the shock of impact and she stumbled back several steps. Sheila stared in horror. The armor piercing round had not killed her, it hadn’t even hurt her. Molotov turned her head to the side and spat out the bullet. Her visor cracked clear open. She just stared holes through Sheila for a moment, making her lose her nerve.
“NOOO!” cried Sheila, “I am innocent, I swear! I didn’t do nothing! I just wanted to be on Animal Planet!”
She pulled the trigger as fast as she could firing rounds without even properly aiming. This time Molotov swat the bullets out of the air. She drew closer, wiggling her fingers, “Seven, eight, I can hardly wait.”
“Stay away from me!” She screamed, pulling out her Bowie knife.
Molotov loomed over her and exclaimed with triumph in a voice that was so sweet and angelic, but that just made what was said so much worse, “Nine, ten, I am going to rape you time and again!”
“I always knew it would be a child to bring me down! Creepy little fuck! Do the world a favor and die in a fire!”
The blade slashed down and shattered on the finger that blocked it. It was hopeless. She was outclassed in every way. Sheila knew she was as good as proper fucked and so tried a last ditch effort. She brought her fingers up and jabbed, trying to gouge out Molotov’s eyes. But she was blocked by Molotov’s hand, which she placed over her nose like a fan. She wagged her finger, “Uh, uh, uh. Very, very naughty. Do you know what I do to bad little girls?”
“No, no, please. I will tell you anything. Just let me go.”
“Too bad,” said Molotov, hugging Sheila’s around the neck, “I hope you like turnips, cause you are my new Suka.”
“Oh, fuck.” Was all that Sheila managed to get out before Molotov gripped and squeezed. Sheila kicked and struggled, but it didn’t take long for the fight to fade and she went limp, unconscious. Molotov grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her through the tunnels. It took a good half hour to get back to the others. They had been skinning the crocodile as per her request.
“Comrade, you have returned what happened to suit?”
“I was careless.” She replied.
“Don’t you need to leave here? Your suit has been compromised.” Said Fold.
“Nyet,” replied Molotov, “I only wear suit cause I don’t like the smell. Radiation is not threat to me.”
“Wait, won’t you mutate or get cancer or something?”
“Nyet, now let’s move.”
Boris stared at the limp body of Sheila, “Who is that?”
“My new pet.”
“You actually caught Sheila?” said Fold in disbelief, “That bitch has been a thorn in my side for quite some time.”
“She put up good fight, but only so much that once can do when they are so heavily overpowered.”
Fold seemed to want to say more, but kept quiet, eyeing Sheila venomously.
“Then are we leaving?” asked Boris.
“Nyet, we still have not completed objective. I simply got side tracked. Girl was fun to chase.”
“Da, then we proceed as planned.”
“Da, I will interrogate her later.”
Boris nodded and Molotov opened one of the compartments on her belt, sliding Sheila inside. With a click, it closed and she was gone. They proceeded forward, following the sewer schematics. After a short while of traversing through grime and muck, they came to a well-treaded path. Molotov raised her hand and they stopped, staring out at the intersection. Ahead glowing blue and red lights flashed from the shoulders of cyber swat members patrolling. There were not many here only several pairs at either end, keeping an eye on things. Molotov waited, listening in.
“What do you think made all that racket up there?”
“The gangs probably noticed the lack of patrols and started stuff. Chief pulled most of us out to deal with the Sixes getting into another fight with the Diablos. Of course, it could have been Burnout going nuts again. With the amount of blow that bitch does one would think her brain would have dripped out of her ears by now.”
“I don’t like being down here with so few.”
“Good thing Nuclear Knight was distracted, we would have lost more when we took out that rat nest these freaks had going on down here.”
“The numbers aren’t adding up though, we didn’t catch them all. Nuclear Knight even escaped.”
“He probably fled to the lower tunnels with the rest of them. We will drown them out with rad-gone once Chief gets back down here with more generators. We will flush the whole damned system clean and finally be rid of this crazy cult. Bronson will be a lot safer after this. Then we can focus all our efforts in taking out the Diablos.”
“What about the Mad Dogs?”
“GK is still licking her wounds after that last fight. They won’t try anything until the full moon when they get their power boost.”
“Well, sure they get stronger, but they also get stupid. When that happens, they are just animals in heat.”
“Animals that can tear buildings down with their bare hands.”
“Don’t remind me. I got kids, man.”
“What are you going to do once this is over with?”
“I got some vacation saved up, probably going to take the family out camping or something.”
“You are getting old, old man.”
“Shut it-” The taller of the two abruptly stopped talking as his head twisted backward. Molotov hung down from above and pulled the body up out of sight.
“What the-” A large arm curled around the other, dragging him into the side tunnel. Boris flexed crushing the helmet and the head.
“Threats neutralized. Seems things are proceeding as planned. They have not found the device, yet.”
They dragged the bodies a little further back and watched the patrol at the far end. It didn’t take long for them to notice the disappearance and lack of communications back. Worried, they came rushing down. However, they slowed to a stop halfway down. The pair scanned with their rifles and backed away. They knew something was wrong, just not exactly what.
“Fall back we have company. Alert the others.” Ordered one of them, staying behind while the other ran.
“It appears that they only have short range coms down here. How advantageous. We should deal with these two.” Said Molotov, emerging from the shadows, like a ninja.
She raised Sheila’s sniper rifle and shot the fleeing man through the back of the head. He went down hard on the concrete. The suit spasmed out twitching and writhing, but he was well and dead. The Swat member standing his ground returned fire, precisely and mechanically. However, the small target dodged and weaved, advancing upon his position. Realizing there was no running his suit glowed red. Molotov had seen this before, it was the self-destruct protocol. He was going to try to collapse the tunnel.
She darted forward and chopped into his neck, severing the head in one brutal motion. The body wobbled and toppled over. Molotov stabbed her hand into the back apparatus and tore it open, removing the power core. All the systems shut down, leaving the suit dead and dull. It was the sure fire way to stop that sort of thing. Blood and servo field pooled around the body. She looked over the helmet and shook the still gasping head free, tossing it to the side where it splattered against the wall. She opened another compartment and stowed away the helmet and power core.
“Vira will be excited to see this, I am sure.”
The bodies were unceremoniously dumped into the foul waters running to the side after being stripped of power cores. The evidence of their murders disposed of the group continued forward. The schematics revealed their objective to be close. They had arrived at the Atomic Raider’s base. The area had already been cleansed of radiation with heavy doses of rad gone and the Cyber Swat members had moved on to cleanse the rest of the tunnels. Molotov snuck around the corner, eyeing the once glowing sanctum which had been decimated. Not a single ramshackle house stood. Bullet holes and explosion marks marred the concrete in various places.
The area no longer lit itself with glowing waters. It was now dull, yet surprisingly clean. Boris led the way following the map. They marched up the stairway to the upraised platform. The podium no longer stood and the book that rested upon it was long gone. They made their way to the back of the room where Nuclear Knight’s home used to be. The wall was cracked from some sort of impact. Boris nodded and Molotov slammed her fist into the wall bringing it down. Dust billowed through the room and a green glow filled their eyes from the cavernous hidden room.
“Ah, he lived up to his name after all. Boris, is it operable or have we wasted our time?”
He stepped forward, placing his hand on the large metal casing. He circled it looking over the device, “I am unsure. Design is primitive. Worst case the nuclear material they used was inert. If so it will need new source of plutonium or other power sources if it is to be live.”
“Plan is still same, once bomb is ready Bronson City will burn, just like L.A. I am sure that Nitro will be very pleased when she arrives later this month. Maybe this time Chimera will actually show their faces, I know they are already here.”
“Where are you going to get the materials?” asked Fold.
“That is above your pay grade unless I decide you are needed for it. Less you know, less of a liability you are.”
“The bomb appears to be stable for transport.” Said Boris.
“Da, Fold, you know what to do. We are pulling out.” Said Molotov, lifting the bomb.
Fold opened a portal on the wall and the group slipped through, before it closed behind them. Leaving the Hero League and all of Bronson City none the wiser of the impending peril.