Rain water tore up from the streets in Amy’s wake. Her avatar flew close to the ground: hopefully, under the radar.
She was stalking. Well, as close to stalking as it got when moving just over 100mph.
The idea was to imitate the traits of a stealth plane as much as possible. She’d also taken pointers from Mr. Perk’s rampage. He’d managed to sneak up on his targets using a biomass muting and camouflage technique she hadn’t thought of. He hadn’t figured it out on purpose. Likely, her monster body just handed it to him, because it knew he needed the extra help. However, she remembered the technique. Amy wasn’t quite sure what John Crow used to scan the cityscape, but it wouldn’t hurt to at least try to fly under the radar.
Her pitch-black avatar’s energy output was low. Atmospheric disturbance and electromagnetic signatures were stifled and mellowed across her biomass in the immediate area. As for her shape? Amy remembered watching a documentary in which a mimic octopus impersonated a flat fish. It didn’t do a very good job. Not by human standards. The result was a wrong-looking, tentacled thing.
That’s what she looked like right then.
Perhaps it was psychosomatic. Sure, Amy could shapeshift, but she generally maintained a humanoid form. Feeling human was important, not merely as a matter of preference. However, her avatar had been blown apart time and time again. Reforming it all … fingers, arms, fingers, legs, head, fingers, and fingers again: it was tough. The human body was a tricky build. Every time she recreated it on the fly, her body adapted, just a little bit. It made changes that were easier to replicate next time. It also got stronger. She felt less human, more natural. Her legs were no more. At least, they weren’t the legs she knew. What remained were tentacles jutting from her flight skirt, clasped together in one, sleek, serpentine unit. When they spread, they reminded her of a vampire squid. The web between them helped when it came to swiftly changing her aerodynamics. Her body felt longer than it should, bending at unnatural angles. It was starting to forget to pretend it had bones. Were her respawns getting sloppy? Maybe, but there was more to it than that.
Her atmosphere was changing. Gone was the semi-amorphous biomass that only, sometimes, looked sort of like a kraken-type-thing from a distance. Her atmosphere had spawned a swarm of eyes and … other things. She couldn’t access them because they weren’t hers. A structured form was coming to fore.
The damage she took, the drive, the rising desperation: all of that brought her closer to It.
She had to reach the finish line before It. began to run.
Crimson lighting lashed the cityscape within her biomass atmosphere. None of it struck the eyescraper. The whirlwind of flyscreen would resist it anyway. This was a distraction. She hoped to keep John Crow’s eyes on the lightning long enough for her to do this.
Her body morphed into an eldritch javelin. In the air and on the street, rainwater seared to steam as Amy’s power flared. Energy condensed around her avatar, aerosol burning. She kept its output restricted to that area. In the next tenth of a second, she went supersonic, stealthily streaking for her target. Before it knew it, she’d already have pierced the heart and the battle would end.
This was The Black Bullet, Silencer Series.
John Crow’s eyescraper hovered, just above the ground, base tentacles touching down like the anchor ribbons of an abominable balloon. She could feel the whirling energies, focused in the heart of the eyescraper. They perfectly aligned with the surface memories she’d tasted in Mr. Perk’s mind:
Therein lay the mercury vortex engine.
The building’s bulbous eyes didn’t have the chance to shift. She’d gut that engine before they could blink.
One second, she was staring down those big, ugly eyes. She smelt the building’s breath wafting from its vents.
( ( BWOOOM! ) )
The next second? It was staring staring her down. From the left. Half a block away. It was as though it had taken a big step sideways, yet it skipped the stepping part.
Amy spread her leg tentacles like a massive umbrella, catching air with the web between them to slow down. She dove, squeezing the air with her leg webbing for that extra speed spurt. The eyescraper’s dim bomb stream sliced through where she’d been like a beam. Focused like that, it would have hit harder than a clingshot. Figured he wouldn’t give his snipers the best weapons.
Amy slithered through the air, avoiding his line of sight. She took a detour through an apartment complex, silently shattering the window. Amy darted through a bedroom, plowing down the door as though it weren’t there. For the barest fraction of a second, she’d glimpsed her reflection. Wow, it was … wow. Probably best not to let Norman see her like this. Sure, the guy didn’t spook easily. He might not even care, but that didn’t mean she wanted him to see her halfway to one-winged angel. This little metamorphosis better have a bishonen line.
Meanwhile, three of her Clarions bombarded the eyescraper with their vibrational blasts.
The eyescraper’s tentacles coiled, squeezing out whirling dim bomb discs that acted as shields.
Interesting. The warp jumps seemed to have a cooldown, even if it was brief. There appeared to be a range too. She was starting to notice patterns.
She was closing in again. She forged the form of a black bullet. The eyescraper unleashed a dim stream. Amy didn’t bother block or dodge. Her javelin-like body pierced the blast. It slowed her down. A lot, but she was still deadly.
( ( BWRRUM! ) )
The building warped. This time, it carried a little something extra.
Amy was latched on to the firing tentacle. It got in her way. Well, not for long. Her avatar’s grip was part wrestler, part parasite.
“̷̦̒Ŕ̵̩͉̉AV̶̹̺͛͊̇̚Ã̴̮͝Ġ̶̤E,”̴͚̙̱̞̓̓
She declared.
Her toothy tentacles sprung and wrung up the length of his own like thorny vines, choking the life from their host. She had him. She had him!
His tentacle flung her earthward. The other limbs withdrew. She sensed the warp bubble, tight around the building’s fly screen.
( ( BWWWUM! ) )
Amy glimpsed the building blinking away just as she went crashing deep into the street. He’d left behind the arm she was attached to. How annoying. It tasted good, though, not that she had time to polish it off.
Amy didn’t bother rise from the crater before giving chase. Asphalt and rainwater erupted in her path as she raged through the ground like it didn’t even matter.
After that close call? The eyescraper was keeping its distance. No longer did it dance at the fringes of her biomass. It always warped away before any part of her could reach it, blinking closer and closer to Brightside. Things would get complicated once they got near the ever-lit, upper crust sector of the city.
Amy spawned a probe from her claw tips and flicked it into the sky. Its eyes scanned the cityscape before her. Reinforcements ahead, just as she suspected.
Her thoughts turned inwards.
~~~
Within the depths her mind, an avatar floated alone, thinking. It divided into two as her kaleidoscopic consciousness went to work.
“Okay, what do we do?” asked Amy 1.
“Stopping one bullet was hard enough, but dozens? … We’re gonna need some new toys,” Amy 2 requested.
“Yep.” Amy 1 pointed out a third avatar. “You there!”
“Me? Here? Since when?” asked third, confused by its existence.
“Doesn’t matter,” Amy 1 declared. “Dream up some toys you think would work! Amy 4, run simulations to make sure they will! Amy 5-!”
“Maybe we should change gears …” Amy 5 suggested.
Amy 1 stared. “Explain.”
“Last time I went close to Brightside, they dimmed the lights so I’d feel safe enough to come closer,” Amy 5 began, “then dialed them to eleven while beaming floodlights at me. I thought I was gonna die!”
“So we just … let them die?” asked Amy 1.
“N-no! I’m just saying we should focus on saving Norman and for Brightside … whatever happens, happens?”
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The ensuing silence and pointed stares grew uncomfortable.
“Look, I’m hurt and tired! I’m tired of being hurt, and I’m tired of being tired!” Amy 5 gushed.
The other avatars dropped what they were doing and swaddled her in a huddle of hugs, hair tentacles and all.
“We’re all tired,” Amy 1 declared.
“Then let’s take a break. We can’t save everyone,” Amy 5 suggested.
“We’ll take a break after we’ve saved everyone,” Amy 1 gently asserted.
“But why?” pressed Amy 5.
“I could give several reasons, but if you want a selfish one? It’s ‘cause we gotta be human,” Amy 1 declared.
Amy 5 stared at her. “… What does that even mean?”
“It’s like the golden rule on all those subseddits: ‘be human’. We were born with a missing piece. We’re defective. Ever since Norman straightened us out, we’ve been trying to compensate: artificially manufactured empathy and whatnot. This is training. We don’t need empathy to do what we gotta do. Then again, we don’t need two eyes either, but they’re a huge help. We’ve gotten this far. Maybe if we keep trying, we won’t have to force it forever. Make enough sparks until the fire burns on its own. This is for us as much as it’s for them. It’s training.”
“It’s not working,” Amy 5 shot down.
“Maybe it is,” shrugged Amy 1. “Sociopaths aren’t born. They’re made. If it’s possible to lose your empathy as you grow up, maybe it’s possible to undo the defect you’ve been born with. We’ve made progress.”
“That doesn’t mean I have to straight up die for Brightside!” Amy 1 blurted, wiggling free of the hug. “If Brightside is capable of hurting me so badly, it can definitely take care of itself!”
“And if it can’t?” Amy 1 supposed.
Amy 5 shrugged. “What goes around comes around.”
Amy 1 grabbed her by the hair. “GET BEHIND ME, SATAN!”
With that, she hurled Amy 5 through the window that existed for that reason alone.
Amy 1 turned to her sisters. “Forget that one, two … maybe eight times Brightside was less than amicable. We save everyone and eat like a queen! That is our mission statement! Oh, and we gotta wrap this up before It takes the wheel.”
They peered through the psychological window. From the darkness, something peered back. The avatars shuddered.
“I thought our mission statement was ‘do no harm’?” Amy 2 mused.
They all looked at her. Then they burst into laughter.
“Good one, Amy 2!” Amy 1 cackled. “Alright, chop chop! We got some toys to crank out!”
~~~
In the outside world, Amy chuckled to herself. Well, she wasn’t quite ‘herself’ anymore.
Deep down, where thoughts melted to instincts, Amy knew: even if she couldn’t win, John Crow wouldn’t win either.
It was closing in fast.
.
.
“̴̸̸̸̵̵̖̰̼̟͚̞̞͖͂̈́͑́͗͛̔͘Ơ̸̵̵̸̷̷̶̢̨͍͚͓͈̣̠̫͚̣̔̂̑̈́̅̈́̆̓͗̂͝͝O̴̴̸̴̸̷̸̴̡̡̧̡̜̭̼̩͖̗̭̤̜̅̍̃̀̏̀̋̾͋̀̌̐͗͜ͅO̵̷̶̵̸̵̴̞̬̯̙̮̣̘͈̞̮̰̯͗̄͌͒̋͆͆̅̀̓͠Ȧ̸̸̶̴̵̵̷͇̫̗̫͎̯̼̤̯̐͆̃͐̎̃͊͒̇͜͝͝M̷̶̸̸̵̶̡̢̛̭̦͇͍̬̈́͊̓̍͜͜͝͠Į̶̵̶̷̶̶̵̴̵͔͖͕̜̳͕̻̼̮̻̱̺̯͔̼́͆̀̄̈́̉͑̊̏̅̍̈́̚̕ͅM̶̴̷̷̴̷̴̸̢̛̱̮̫̻̫̺̤͕̳͓͙͉̣͆̃̉̒́̽̀͗̀͘͘͘͜!̴̵̵̴̶̡͍̺̰̘͙̙͋͗́̋͌͒̾̀!̷̵̵̴̶̷̶̵͍̳͓͚̙̮͍̹͔̟̹̭̋̉́͑̀̾̈́̎̊͋̉͝ͅ!̵̵̴̵̶̷̴̷̴̶̵̡̛̛̻̳̬̖͔̗̖͚̖͎̘̖̜̣̝̟̜̉͆̀̀͑͛̎̓̈́̀͒͛̇͆̆͜͝”̵̸̶̵̵̶̸̷̸̧̛͕̦̮̜̗̤̠̖̫͙̺̩͕̟͕̳̱̊̑͆͆̆̔̋͗̑̊̏̕͝
.
.
Amy gnashed her teeth and held It back. It was like trying not to sneeze. That was the worst metaphor she could possibly think of. Better would be comparing herself to a leaf, standing against a hurricane. Alone. No. That was a big, dumb lie, wasn’t it? At the end of the day, she had Norman.
“̵̗̍͛̃P̴̛͖͕͗͌́E̴͈͂̀R̶̠͈̤͍͒SI̷̙̒S̶̠͇͋̀͑T̸̩̥̀̊EN̸̢͝C̵̡̯̀̃E P̸̫͙̋͝R̴̮̾̒É̴̑́͗ͅD̴̙̚͘̕Â̷̼̙ͅT̸̠͓̀͜Ọ̸̠͒͌͆͂R̴̙̱̰̈ͅ,̷̡͍̬̲̂̎͂”̷̛̟̝̌̔͝
Amy declared.
And so, the chase continued.
~~~
John Crow shook his head. Was Amy really this cheesy? Calling out her moves like this? She was pretty much texting him her tactics! Maybe she’d watched too much anime. Maybe it helped her focus, or maybe …
… Maybe he should focus on his own predicament.
Poom … POOM … POOM!
Wrapped in layers and layers of Dread’s aerosol, John Crow had cocooned himself away from Norman. Dread had a lot of biomass to spare. It didn’t matter much if some died. Still, the guy was breaking through. John Crow had decided to ignore Norman a bit, in favour of dealing with his stupidly overpowered girlfriend … who seemed to have a high fever, based on the scanners.
~~~
Within Amy’s mind, dozens of avatars scrambled hither and dither.
“They keep snapping! We need more tensile strength!”
“I’ve been testing our neuron-equivalent flash ash. It’s got more tensile strength than anything we can build!”
“Good! Hook them up to the units and see if we can slow them down on the shooting range!”
“Hey! Try these parachute designs!”
“They’re great … 24, test the vectors!”
“On it!”
“How’s the vibrational liquefaction coming?”
“We’re still working out the kinks. Haven’t found the smoothest way to burrow through concrete, but we’re close.”
Amy 1 stopped to look out the window, sipping a cup of mauby with calmness that belied the situation.
“Why is the mindscape on fire?” Amy 1 asked.
“That’s the thing about kaleidoscopic consciousness,” Amy 58 noted, stepping up beside her. “Spawning all these avatars doesn’t create more mental energy. All we’re doing is dividing what we already had. Combine that with squeezing hundreds and hundreds of thoughts into every moment? Yeah. We’re overclocking it. Just a bit.”
They spotted Amy 63 curled up in a corner. Not to mention she was just, casually, spontaneously combusting.
“You okay over there?” Asked Amy 1.
“Peachy,-just-peachy! This-is-ah-ha-HA-HAA! This-is-all-part-of-my-process!” rambled Amy 63.
Amy 1 slowly nodded. “Why don’t you … take the rest of the day off. Sound good?”
“Th-th-tha-thank-you-Ma’am!” 63 jittered.
With that, the burning avatar ran at the window and hurled her sorry self out into the black beyond, never to be seen again.
Amy 1 took another sip as she turned to 58. “I dunno if kaleidoscopic consciousness was a good investment here. This is Black Friday at Allmart behaviour.”
Amy 58 pushed up her glasses. “Be that as it may, bouncing ideas off ourselves has been incredibly helpful. I’d say it’s a worthy investment.”
“Still haven’t worked out a functional toy, though,” Amy 1 chided.
“WE DID DE TING!” Amy 2 and Amy 3 cheered in unison.
The avatar workforce burst into applause.
~~~
No matter how quickly John Crow replaced the layers of protection, Norman continued to make progress. John Crow could see the glow of burning knuckles through the cocoon’s shadows. He set the eyescraper to follow an algorithmic series of instructions. He’d trained it well. It could autopilot while he ended this annoyance permanently. He flexed his claws in preparation for a good gutting. Sure, the building wouldn’t behave quite as smartly without his guidance, but … oh … what was Amy up to?
The moment he’d turned his focus from piloting, she fired a series of projectiles he’d never seen before. They flew independently of her main atmosphere. Each broke the sound barrier. He returned to piloting and warped to a spot where they weren’t heading. It was a scattershot. Most of the projectiles wouldn’t have hit him anyway. Was it some wild gamble that a random shot would do damage? Wait a minute … the projectiles had slowed. Beyond the influence of her aerokinetic atmosphere, they slowed enough to land against buildings without blasting straight through them. Membranes spread out from them, slowing their flight like parachutes. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be sufficient, but she’d attached some kind of bungee cords to dozens of buildings and her main biomass. They ensured the projectiles didn’t land like cannon balls. What was she playing at? They’d touched down everywhere. Warping past them in one go wouldn’t-
KJFNIDSNFOINHAFEDIHFOAJJI!?!?!
Somehow, Norman had silently peeled open the cocoon. Behind him, black and crimson lightning clashed as Amy’s atmosphere fought his own for dominance of the control room. Silhouetted by the dim lightshow, the boy had just about lined up his flash knuckles for a shot.
Okay. Nope.
John Crow mentally threw off off the cocoon, keeping it between him and Norman. He set it upon the young man like a rabid dog. It morphed into an amorphous swarm of writhing shadows that engulfed Norman. He commanded them, to crush, and to crush, and to crush.
… Surely Norman was dead, right?
“̴͈̙̮̃̒̍̈O̵̡̜̿M̶̛̙͎͔͘͜Ņ̶̛̹̊Ị̷̢̩͉͠DI̶̲̾̃R̷̩̈̐͌͠E̶̛̩̺̓̾C̶̣̼͉̫͒T̷̬͖̍͂͘Į̸̥̝͂O̵͕̖̔N̶̲̜͎̽̚AL ̷̮͎͆͐B̵̤͉̬̖́L̵̥͐̕͝IṰ̵̈Z̷̧̲̬̭̽͒́,̵̨̘̩̗̐͊”̷̙̜̺͐͊̇
Amy boomed.
Energy signatures lit up everywhere. Their source? The projectiles she’d peppered across the city.
N-no way! This was a hunting net!? Those things would fire from all directions! Were they turrets of some type? Designed to function outside her main biomass?
Around Norman, Dread’s biomass vibrated to match the boy’s voice: “Are you done yet?”
John Crow choked on his shock. Norman had hijacked more of his A.M.E. Enough to make it speak for him!
Flash knuckle beams split the biomass. The slicing light shafted into John Crow’s face. He jumped back. Though blind, he was still in touch with the sensors. The projectile units Amy fired up were not many. Just enough for him to block them, it seemed. He calculated the vectors and preemptively released dim bomb shields. Yes. He could block them … but why? She had so many units to fire from. Why’d she activate so few? Why not overwhelm him? Of course, he could simply warp. Confidentially, he didn’t like doing that. Every warp denatured the mercury vortex engine a little more, not to mention the energy cost. Come to think of it, chances were she didn’t like when he warped either. Maybe she wanted him to think he could handle this without warping.
He almost missed the subtle tremours.
A sharp pain erupted at the base of the eyescraper as John Crow warped it into the sky. The eyes on the underside (the remaining ones, anyway) caught needle-like tendrils chasing his building into the air. Some had penetrated, though severed by the warp. The landlords on the lower floors were desperately fighting them off as they writhed for the vortex engine. She must have sent that thing underground. From the feel of it, it used vibrations to liquify soil, concrete and all so as to dig without digging.
Fascinating.
Why had this attack gone unannounced? Ah. Had she called her attacks this whole time, just to throw him off when they stopped lining up with her words? There’d been no omnidirectional assault. The units she’d scattered must have been decoys … or not.
Once he was in the air, they all lit up. No more buildings, blocking their lines of sight.
The perfect shot.
This girl! This brilliant girl!
Some fired. Hypersonic atmospheric blasts carved away chunks of his flyscreen and pounded Dread’s aerosol shields. If those blasts had been part of Amy’s atmosphere, the flyscreen would have absorbed their energy to resist them. Judo, basically. However, these blasts were air. Basic, garden variety, air.
He warped.
A split second later, other scattered units fired hyper-dense bullets at thousands of miles per hour. Had he been an instant slower? They would have gone straight through the holes made by the atmospheric blasts. Straight to the heart of the vortex engine. She must have retrofitted the clingshots’ firing mechanisms into her weapons.
He fled, keeping himself between the weapon modules and the far-off Brightside as much as possible. She wouldn’t fire hypersonic rounds if missing him meant punching through several layers of populated area, would she? That girl made him wonder. His warps found cover behind lesser buildings as best as possible. Between warps, his eyescraper’s tentacles scrambled across the ground to keep it moving like a fleeing animal. Piloting a skyscraper (as strange as that combination of words sounded in his head), the top often towered over all else. It made a good target, but Norman was up there with him. He doubted she’d fire so close to Norman’s position … right?
Speaking of Norman, John Crow had come to an unpleasant realisation: he was being punched.
Normally, Norman’s punches would mean little to nothing, but with those knuckle gadgets? Their light, their electric sting? The blows rained like burning brimstone.
They always landed on his liver.
He, finally, set the eyescraper to run like mad on autopilot. His claws made a beeline for Norman’s neck.
Suddenly, John Crow was in the air.
He felt the grip around his striking limb. Speaking of judo, it took him a moment to realise Norman threw him.