Myra! No!
…was what I would’ve exclaimed if I actually cared for her well-being.
Nonetheless, it’d be a huge loss of a very useful asset if she died, not to mention I hadn’t sufficiently bothered her yet under Rule #4.
I made my way to her, slinking from the cover of one destroyed car to the next, avoiding the attention of the BID above and the other monsters heading for the station. My left hand still held the megaphone. The protestors were mysteriously missing; they might’ve gotten in the precinct. There may be some other use for this megaphone. With my right hand, I already started to prepare to transform into Blanchette. But I didn’t will the floating gold liquid floating to turn into the red mask because an idea crossed my mind.
What if, instead of helping Myra, I slipped past their fight and snuck inside the building? I closed my right hand, the gold liquid dissipated. Don’t mind me, people. Just continue your business there. She was doing fine on her own anyway.
The moment the BID opened fire, spikes erupted from Myra’s armor, impaling the monsters gathering around her. The spikes extended and curled upwards in the direction of the BID helicopter, holding the parasite assholes above her—an umbrella of flesh against the rain of bullets. Some of the bullets tore past the bodies and hit her armor. Chips and shards got knocked off, but the bullets didn’t seem to have penetrated her body within.
From the back of the left side of the building where the AIU department and labs were located—and most likely where Johann was—Myra stomped to the center part while under constant fire. An overhanging roof jutted out above the main exit; a large slab of concrete was the perfect cover from the BID.
Some monsters followed Myra; those just got added to her meatshield. But most of the uglyass creatures assaulted the now undefended left-wing—or I guess right-wing if looking from the front.
They tried to break through the barricaded windows, getting blasted by the defending cops for their efforts. Unfortunately, an eight-foot slimy ghoul with snake-like limbs broke through. It yanked a police officer through the small opening it made, ripping his body into chunks, flinging him to the expectant hungry mouths of its fellows like throwing candies at a children’s party. A few monsters stopped to eat, but the rest crowded at the new entrance, clambering over each other, eager to gorge on the feast that awaited them inside.
Fuck! I have to get in. I broke into a sprint, glancing at the BID helicopter that descended to have a better angle to shoot Myra. They didn’t notice me. Why are they so focused on her?
I was getting close! A patrol car blocking my way suddenly flipped to the left, revealing a hairy, many-limbed shitface hiding beneath. It attempted to catch me with its fat legs like a trapdoor spider, but I parried them with punches and kicks, taking care not to damage the megaphone. Flesh burst, black blood sprayed. A satisfying squish each time I hit monster flesh.
Parting aside the cage of limbs, I squeezed through, hopped over its disgusting head that tried to bite me with its lopsided human mouth, and onto the van behind it.
Huh? I tittered on the roof of the van, stopping myself going forward. Someone…or something familiar showed up further ahead. A woman wielding an enormous metallic lollipop—its pole handle nearly as tall as her, its double-bladed head wider than her shoulders—jumped from the second floor down to the monster jamboree below.
“Why is tha—? Shit!” WHAM!
A jumbo spider leg slammed down. I evaded left. The van’s roof crumpled down like tin foil. I wobbled, ducked to avoid another leg, then slid down the windshield. The spider tore apart the van, looking for me, but I already escaped, trying to find cover.
“What the fuck is that axe doing here?” I complained to the world. I was having a peaceful time, then that fucking thing just had to show up and ruin my day. I peeked from my new hiding spot under a surprisingly not-destroyed car—I really don’t want to get noticed by the fucking axe—to assess the situation.
The axe, with its mind-controlled wielder, was defending the left side of the building.
Was Axe Lady—already the second one, I suppose—someone I knew? It might be my imagination, but she looked familiar. I couldn’t clearly make out her appearance because she moved too fast and was covered with monster guts and black goo. Axe Lady cleaved through the monsters, kicking up a small tornado. A flurry of wind blades formed a circular barrier around her. Any monster that came close was shredded as if they were stuffed inside a meat grinder.
I wasn’t sure if the Adumbrae controlling axe was protecting someone inside the building or just saving people in general. Probably the latter? I really didn’t have any information about these guys. Were they with the 2Ms or not? Saving people definitely wasn’t on the 2Ms priority list though.
Axe Lady, with a huge swing, sent three tentacle zombies flying. In mid-air, they broke up into cubes, perfect for a hearty monster stew.
Another swing sent a powerful gust towards the BID helicopter hovering near Myra. But it didn’t chop it up, only made it shake in the air a bit. The agents shot at Axe Lady, but she used the disproportionately large head of the axe to shield against the bullets. She zigzagged to get out of the line of their fire and hurled another wave of wind. The chopper wildly tilted right; the agents fell back inside.
She just wants to scare off the BID. Definitely not something the 2Ms side would do. The BID got the message and flew away. This still didn’t tell me which side Axe Lady, or rather the Adumbrae controlling the axe, was on.
Having eliminated the monsters near her, she turned her attention to Myra.
Don’t kill her, please. That’s my job.
The creepy whistle I’d heard several times yesterday rung loud and clear, a formidable yet mellow note. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. A couple of wind blades surged Myra’s way. It hit the decaying flesh golems wrestling her, allowing her to easily throw them off after they were sliced into many pieces. She then grew massive shields on her arms and hunkered down, expecting to be attacked next.
But there were no more whistles.
Instead, Axe Lady pointed Myra to the other end of the building.
Did she know who Myra was? Probably not. More likely, she just considered her a temporary ally with the same goals.
Myra didn’t move.
Axe Lady shot down a small gremlin trying to enter one of the second-floor windows with a whistling strike—a demonstration of her good intentions. And she did her pointing thing again.
Myra gave her a nod, almost imperceptible in her bulky tree armor. She turned around and headed to the opposite wing to fight the monsters there.
Eh? They agreed to work together? What the hell, Myra? We were supposed to be training buddies, but here she was making friends with the Adumbrae that tried to murder me. I’m hurt, I thought sarcastically.
At any rate, I was lucky as fuck I didn’t transform into Blanchette and join Myra in fighting, or else that stupid axe would’ve gone for me and filleted my ass. I didn’t think I, as Blanchette, was one of the people it wanted to save. It failed to kill me yesterday, it would certainly try again today if it knew I was here. And I didn’t think I’d be able to win again. There were too many people around here it could use as ‘host’.
What if Johann or Ramello got ensnared by the axe? What about Myra? I winced at the thought of her as the axe-wielder. That was going to be a huge pain in the ass.
But this situation is also good.
Myra and Axe Lady had no problems taking care of the small fries and the occasional bigger potato wedges that showed up. Did I even need to get inside? Nah, I could just chill and—sunlight? Hey! Where did the car above me go? Someone lifted it up!
“Ghrooh, hrrwwoagh!”
A large shadow loomed from behind. I dove and rolled aside as a hulking monster slammed the car back down. I picked myself up and faced my new enemy. A familiar bulky grey form. I grinned, almost giggling with excitement. “Gorilla! I was hoping to meet one of you!” I kicked the megaphone away so it wouldn’t get destroyed in our fight. It emitted a keen note similar to microphone feedback that annoyed my gorilla buddy.
“GHROAA!”
“Sure, I’ll take you on,” I said. Sorry, Deen, I might have to throw away this set of clothes later too. I just couldn’t let this opportunity pass.
My fight with the gorilla monster in my condo was one of my top ten most favorite fights ever. It was especially memorable because I did it in my Pino body with no super strength. Having another fight, this time in my original body, could be fun too. I glanced back at Axe Lady. As long as I didn’t turn to Blanchette, it should leave me alone.
A foot taller with craggy pieces of bone plating covering random parts of its body, this gorilla monster didn’t exactly look like the previous one I fought. It issued a challenge to me, fiercely beating its chest armor. Then it hunkered on its knuckles and bared its teeth.
As it took a deep breath to roar again, I leaped at its head and pried its mouth wide open. I placed a foot on its lower jaw to stretch it wider. With my free leg, I kicked away its massive hand about to grab me. But it caught me with its other hand.
I stomped its jaw down before it could squeeze me. Its fangs went through my shoe and pierced my foot. The pain was nothing. I kicked down again with more force, at the same time pushing up the roof of its mouth with both hands. A distinct crack; its jawbones gave way.
One more time! “Yaah!” I shouted, stretching my leg straight until I felt no resistance, its flesh and skin completely torn.
It cried out in pain, a weird sound with its lower jaw separated from its face. Its large tongue amusingly flapped around. A waterfall of black blood streamed down.
Still dangling from its upper mouth, my fingers buried in its gums, I pulled myself up. My body strained as it tried to tug me. Muscles stretched, bones about to pop—I didn’t care. I was getting pretty good at ignoring pain. I reached the front of its face. Struggling to hang on with one hand, I pulled back my other for a powerful as fuck punch.
“Eat this!” I yelled, immediately cringing at my cliché line. I punched its eye, its closed eyelid barely any protection. Its massive squishy eyeball burst. Gel-like liquid mixed with the black goo and splashed on me. My fist went in deeper, hitting the back of its eye socket, breaking through inside the skull. My entire arm up nearly up to my shoulders was buried inside its head.
I thought of cool one-liners while slushing its brain with my hand in it. Dunno why I still felt calm. The rush of battle I expected to excite me was missing. However, the feeling of strength even in my Erind body was very satisfying. And just being powerful was enjoyable in and of itself.
The gorilla monster flailed around but couldn’t get me off. I extracted my arm and punched, again and again and again. Its head was comically flattened like in those old cartoons. Too easy.
It dropped to its knees.
Was it giving up? Was it dead? No!
It smashed its head to the ground before I could react. Too bad for me, I was between its face and the hard parking lot pavement.
“Aaah! Fucking shit!” A concrete bumper was beneath me. It was parallel to my back. A jolt shot through my body when my spine folded over it. This time, the pain got to me.
My muscles seized up. I released my hold on the gorilla monster’s head; it immediately backed away. Terrible twitching began. It became stronger and turned into rocking convulsions. My fingers uncontrollably curled; my arms contracted close to my body. What was happen—? A stroke? My back. Shit. My spine! Heal! Heal! Heal!
My body wasn’t listening to me. It was so fucking hard to straighten out my limbs. The gorilla monster lucked out big time. Getting slammed to the ground shouldn’t cause me this much problem if it was any other situation. My powers were affected.
I managed to bend up a bit to see what happened to my opponent. Its head was squished. It retreated a few steps and fell, apparently dead. Which was the problem.
Tentacles grew from its body and turned to tear apart its host, consuming it to fuel another mutation.
I can’t have that. Even with tremors rocking me, I willed myself to crawl forward. Go Erind! I had to kill it now. Time to heal was a luxury I didn’t have. Push…push myself…push past the limits. Hysterical strength wasn’t just getting stronger at the cost of straining the body; its core was ignoring pain.
I reached the gorilla tentacle thingy. It attacked, its appendages hammering me. I fought back, disassembling it with brute strength, breaking it down one fistful of flesh at a time. I zeroed in on the task, focused solely on killing this parasite.
There is no pain.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
The shaking ground snapped me out of my murderous trance. Pain consumed me. I keeled over the remains of the gorilla monster, faceplanting on the mass of tentacle pieces. There it was again. Shaking. Earthquake? Don’t tell me—
BAAMM!
I was in the air. Spinning. Surprise momentarily overtook pain. I spotted Myra fighting. And there were more monsters. Then the ground came up fast.
CRASSHH!
I landed on the roof of a car.
…
Woozy…
My head hurt. Everything hurt. But it was muted, the pain was…not here. As if I was it was just a hazy memory even though I was experiencing it now.
I opened my eyes to a swimming world. Deafening white noise was all I could hear. I pushed myself to half-sit up with my unbroken left arm and looked down at myself.
My clothes were ripped, the fabric over my abdomen torn away. I hadn’t tried a bare-midriff style before, not counting my Blanchette outfit. But that was a different body. Maybe showing some skin could be a nice change of pace. If only I had skin left. Innards spilled out the wide gash across my lower torso. My innards. I held a thick strand of my intestines. My blood flowed nonstop, pooling beneath me. This shouldn’t be outside my body…right?
I looked around, hoping someone would answer me.
There seemed to be no one close enough to ask the correct place for intestines.
To my left, many monsters were spilling into the parking lot. Behind them, a formidable figure, almost like a building walking—the mammoth monster I met earlier. It got bigger. A lot bigger.
Facing right, I saw Myra fighting off the resurgence of monsters. She worked together with the Axe Lady to protect the building, to keep the monsters away from entering it. But there were commotions inside the building too. I saw through some of the windows the clash of blue against yellow. Cops fighting PCM members. Even on the rooftop, there seemed to be fighting. I wasn’t sure what was going on up there because I didn’t have a good view from where I was.
Lastly, I faced forward.
About half a basketball court away was a four-legged creature. It was pretty huge that I could see it even with cars between us. It reminded me of the buffalos I saw when I visited Yellowstone National Park with Dad. Buffalo or bison? I never figured out the difference between those. The creature raised its head and turned to me. Buffalo or bison, this monster’s face certainly wasn’t either of those.
It lowered its head, pawed the ground, and began its charge. Cars, lampposts, it plowed through them like they were just cardboard boxes.
Hmmm…I’m going to die, aren’t I?
And then the world came back.
The smell of the black blood that drenched my balaclava mask made my headache worse. I tasted my own blood in my mouth. The piercing car alarm was annoying. And the pain. The fucking pain! Agony and suffering that I had never felt before.
I exposed my lower face, pulling up my mask with my left hand. I could barely move my right hand, but I turned my palm upwards and summoned the Blanchette mask. Fuck yeah, my power still worked. I was anxious that I might not be able to do it. My arm hadn’t sufficiently healed to bring the mask up to my face. So, I curled down, squishing my exposed innards, so I could wear the mask.
And the mask becomes a face.
There are a lot of fuckers that need to be fucked up!
Myra! No!
…was what I would’ve exclaimed if I actually cared for her well-being.
Nonetheless, it’d be a huge loss of a very useful asset if she died, not to mention I hadn’t sufficiently bothered her yet under Rule #4.
I made my way to her, slinking from the cover of one destroyed car to the next, avoiding the attention of the BID above and the other monsters heading for the station. My left hand still held the megaphone. The protestors were mysteriously missing; they might’ve gotten in the precinct. There may be some other use for this megaphone. With my right hand, I already started to prepare to transform into Blanchette. But I didn’t will the floating gold liquid floating to turn into the red mask because an idea crossed my mind.
What if, instead of helping Myra, I slipped past their fight and snuck inside the building? I closed my right hand, the gold liquid dissipated. Don’t mind me, people. Just continue your business there. She was doing fine on her own anyway.
The moment the BID opened fire, spikes erupted from Myra’s armor, impaling the monsters gathering around her. The spikes extended and curled upwards in the direction of the BID helicopter, holding the parasite assholes above her—an umbrella of flesh against the rain of bullets. Some of the bullets tore past the bodies and hit her armor. Chips and shards got knocked off, but the bullets didn’t seem to have penetrated her body within.
From the back of the left side of the building where the AIU department and labs were located—and most likely where Johann was—Myra stomped to the center part while under constant fire. An overhanging roof jutted out above the main exit; a large slab of concrete was the perfect cover from the BID.
Some monsters followed Myra; those just got added to her meatshield. But most of the uglyass creatures assaulted the now undefended left-wing—or I guess right-wing if looking from the front.
They tried to break through the barricaded windows, getting blasted by the defending cops for their efforts. Unfortunately, an eight-foot slimy ghoul with snake-like limbs broke through. It yanked a police officer through the small opening it made, ripping his body into chunks, flinging him to the expectant hungry mouths of its fellows like throwing candies at a children’s party. A few monsters stopped to eat, but the rest crowded at the new entrance, clambering over each other, eager to gorge on the feast that awaited them inside.
Fuck! I have to get in. I broke into a sprint, glancing at the BID helicopter that descended to have a better angle to shoot Myra. They didn’t notice me. Why are they so focused on her?
I was getting close! A patrol car blocking my way suddenly flipped to the left, revealing a hairy, many-limbed shitface hiding beneath. It attempted to catch me with its fat legs like a trapdoor spider, but I parried them with punches and kicks, taking care not to damage the megaphone. Flesh burst, black blood sprayed. A satisfying squish each time I hit monster flesh.
Parting aside the cage of limbs, I squeezed through, hopped over its disgusting head that tried to bite me with its lopsided human mouth, and onto the van behind it.
Huh? I tittered on the roof of the van, stopping myself going forward. Someone…or something familiar showed up further ahead. A woman wielding an enormous metallic lollipop—its pole handle nearly as tall as her, its double-bladed head wider than her shoulders—jumped from the second floor down to the monster jamboree below.
“Why is tha—? Shit!” WHAM!
A jumbo spider leg slammed down. I evaded left. The van’s roof crumpled down like tin foil. I wobbled, ducked to avoid another leg, then slid down the windshield. The spider tore apart the van, looking for me, but I already escaped, trying to find cover.
“What the fuck is that axe doing here?” I complained to the world. I was having a peaceful time, then that fucking thing just had to show up and ruin my day. I peeked from my new hiding spot under a surprisingly not-destroyed car—I really don’t want to get noticed by the fucking axe—to assess the situation.
The axe, with its mind-controlled wielder, was defending the left side of the building.
Was Axe Lady—already the second one, I suppose—someone I knew? It might be my imagination, but she looked familiar. I couldn’t clearly make out her appearance because she moved too fast and was covered with monster guts and black goo. Axe Lady cleaved through the monsters, kicking up a small tornado. A flurry of wind blades formed a circular barrier around her. Any monster that came close was shredded as if they were stuffed inside a meat grinder.
I wasn’t sure if the Adumbrae controlling axe was protecting someone inside the building or just saving people in general. Probably the latter? I really didn’t have any information about these guys. Were they with the 2Ms or not? Saving people definitely wasn’t on the 2Ms priority list though.
Axe Lady, with a huge swing, sent three tentacle zombies flying. In mid-air, they broke up into cubes, perfect for a hearty monster stew.
Another swing sent a powerful gust towards the BID helicopter hovering near Myra. But it didn’t chop it up, only made it shake in the air a bit. The agents shot at Axe Lady, but she used the disproportionately large head of the axe to shield against the bullets. She zigzagged to get out of the line of their fire and hurled another wave of wind. The chopper wildly tilted right; the agents fell back inside.
She just wants to scare off the BID. Definitely not something the 2Ms side would do. The BID got the message and flew away. This still didn’t tell me which side Axe Lady, or rather the Adumbrae controlling the axe, was on.
Having eliminated the monsters near her, she turned her attention to Myra.
Don’t kill her, please. That’s my job.
The creepy whistle I’d heard several times yesterday rung loud and clear, a formidable yet mellow note. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. A couple of wind blades surged Myra’s way. It hit the decaying flesh golems wrestling her, allowing her to easily throw them off after they were sliced into many pieces. She then grew massive shields on her arms and hunkered down, expecting to be attacked next.
But there were no more whistles.
Instead, Axe Lady pointed Myra to the other end of the building.
Did she know who Myra was? Probably not. More likely, she just considered her a temporary ally with the same goals.
Myra didn’t move.
Axe Lady shot down a small gremlin trying to enter one of the second-floor windows with a whistling strike—a demonstration of her good intentions. And she did her pointing thing again.
Myra gave her a nod, almost imperceptible in her bulky tree armor. She turned around and headed to the opposite wing to fight the monsters there.
Eh? They agreed to work together? What the hell, Myra? We were supposed to be training buddies, but here she was making friends with the Adumbrae that tried to murder me. I’m hurt, I thought sarcastically.
At any rate, I was lucky as fuck I didn’t transform into Blanchette and join Myra in fighting, or else that stupid axe would’ve gone for me and filleted my ass. I didn’t think I, as Blanchette, was one of the people it wanted to save. It failed to kill me yesterday, it would certainly try again today if it knew I was here. And I didn’t think I’d be able to win again. There were too many people around here it could use as ‘host’.
What if Johann or Ramello got ensnared by the axe? What about Myra? I winced at the thought of her as the axe-wielder. That was going to be a huge pain in the ass.
But this situation is also good.
Myra and Axe Lady had no problems taking care of the small fries and the occasional bigger potato wedges that showed up. Did I even need to get inside? Nah, I could just chill and—sunlight? Hey! Where did the car above me go? Someone lifted it up!
“Ghrooh, hrrwwoagh!”
A large shadow loomed from behind. I dove and rolled aside as a hulking monster slammed the car back down. I picked myself up and faced my new enemy. A familiar bulky grey form. I grinned, almost giggling with excitement. “Gorilla! I was hoping to meet one of you!” I kicked the megaphone away so it wouldn’t get destroyed in our fight. It emitted a keen note similar to microphone feedback that annoyed my gorilla buddy.
“GHROAA!”
“Sure, I’ll take you on,” I said. Sorry, Deen, I might have to throw away this set of clothes later too. I just couldn’t let this opportunity pass.
My fight with the gorilla monster in my condo was one of my top ten most favorite fights ever. It was especially memorable because I did it in my Pino body with no super strength. Having another fight, this time in my original body, could be fun too. I glanced back at Axe Lady. As long as I didn’t turn to Blanchette, it should leave me alone.
A foot taller with craggy pieces of bone plating covering random parts of its body, this gorilla monster didn’t exactly look like the previous one I fought. It issued a challenge to me, fiercely beating its chest armor. Then it hunkered on its knuckles and bared its teeth.
As it took a deep breath to roar again, I leaped at its head and pried its mouth wide open. I placed a foot on its lower jaw to stretch it wider. With my free leg, I kicked away its massive hand about to grab me. But it caught me with its other hand.
I stomped its jaw down before it could squeeze me. Its fangs went through my shoe and pierced my foot. The pain was nothing. I kicked down again with more force, at the same time pushing up the roof of its mouth with both hands. A distinct crack; its jawbones gave way.
One more time! “Yaah!” I shouted, stretching my leg straight until I felt no resistance, its flesh and skin completely torn.
It cried out in pain, a weird sound with its lower jaw separated from its face. Its large tongue amusingly flapped around. A waterfall of black blood streamed down.
Still dangling from its upper mouth, my fingers buried in its gums, I pulled myself up. My body strained as it tried to tug me. Muscles stretched, bones about to pop—I didn’t care. I was getting pretty good at ignoring pain. I reached the front of its face. Struggling to hang on with one hand, I pulled back my other for a powerful as fuck punch.
“Eat this!” I yelled, immediately cringing at my cliché line. I punched its eye, its closed eyelid barely any protection. Its massive squishy eyeball burst. Gel-like liquid mixed with the black goo and splashed on me. My fist went in deeper, hitting the back of its eye socket, breaking through inside the skull. My entire arm up nearly up to my shoulders was buried inside its head.
I thought of cool one-liners while slushing its brain with my hand in it. Dunno why I still felt calm. The rush of battle I expected to excite me was missing. However, the feeling of strength even in my Erind body was very satisfying. And just being powerful was enjoyable in and of itself.
The gorilla monster flailed around but couldn’t get me off. I extracted my arm and punched, again and again and again. Its head was comically flattened like in those old cartoons. Too easy.
It dropped to its knees.
Was it giving up? Was it dead? No!
It smashed its head to the ground before I could react. Too bad for me, I was between its face and the hard parking lot pavement.
“Aaah! Fucking shit!” A concrete bumper was beneath me. It was parallel to my back. A jolt shot through my body when my spine folded over it. This time, the pain got to me.
My muscles seized up. I released my hold on the gorilla monster’s head; it immediately backed away. Terrible twitching began. It became stronger and turned into rocking convulsions. My fingers uncontrollably curled; my arms contracted close to my body. What was happen—? A stroke? My back. Shit. My spine! Heal! Heal! Heal!
My body wasn’t listening to me. It was so fucking hard to straighten out my limbs. The gorilla monster lucked out big time. Getting slammed to the ground shouldn’t cause me this much problem if it was any other situation. My powers were affected.
I managed to bend up a bit to see what happened to my opponent. Its head was squished. It retreated a few steps and fell, apparently dead. Which was the problem.
Tentacles grew from its body and turned to tear apart its host, consuming it to fuel another mutation.
I can’t have that. Even with tremors rocking me, I willed myself to crawl forward. Go Erind! I had to kill it now. Time to heal was a luxury I didn’t have. Push…push myself…push past the limits. Hysterical strength wasn’t just getting stronger at the cost of straining the body; its core was ignoring pain.
I reached the gorilla tentacle thingy. It attacked, its appendages hammering me. I fought back, disassembling it with brute strength, breaking it down one fistful of flesh at a time. I zeroed in on the task, focused solely on killing this parasite.
There is no pain.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
The shaking ground snapped me out of my murderous trance. Pain consumed me. I keeled over the remains of the gorilla monster, faceplanting on the mass of tentacle pieces. There it was again. Shaking. Earthquake? Don’t tell me—
BAAMM!
I was in the air. Spinning. Surprise momentarily overtook pain. I spotted Myra fighting. And there were more monsters. Then the ground came up fast.
CRASSHH!
I landed on the roof of a car.
…
Woozy…
My head hurt. Everything hurt. But it was muted, the pain was…not here. As if I was it was just a hazy memory even though I was experiencing it now.
I opened my eyes to a swimming world. Deafening white noise was all I could hear. I pushed myself to half-sit up with my unbroken left arm and looked down at myself.
My clothes were ripped, the fabric over my abdomen torn away. I hadn’t tried a bare-midriff style before, not counting my Blanchette outfit. But that was a different body. Maybe showing some skin could be a nice change of pace. If only I had skin left. Innards spilled out the wide gash across my lower torso. My innards. I held a thick strand of my intestines. My blood flowed nonstop, pooling beneath me. This shouldn’t be outside my body…right?
I looked around, hoping someone would answer me.
There seemed to be no one close enough to ask the correct place for intestines.
To my left, many monsters were spilling into the parking lot. Behind them, a formidable figure, almost like a building walking—the mammoth monster I met earlier. It got bigger. A lot bigger.
Facing right, I saw Myra fighting off the resurgence of monsters. She worked together with the Axe Lady to protect the building, to keep the monsters away from entering it. But there were commotions inside the building too. I saw through some of the windows the clash of blue against yellow. Cops fighting PCM members. Even on the rooftop, there seemed to be fighting. I wasn’t sure what was going on up there because I didn’t have a good view from where I was.
Lastly, I faced forward.
About half a basketball court away was a four-legged creature. It was pretty huge that I could see it even with cars between us. It reminded me of the buffalos I saw when I visited Yellowstone National Park with Dad. Buffalo or bison? I never figured out the difference between those. The creature raised its head and turned to me. Buffalo or bison, this monster’s face certainly wasn’t either of those.
It lowered its head, pawed the ground, and began its charge. Cars, lampposts, it plowed through them like they were just cardboard boxes.
Hmmm…I’m going to die, aren’t I?
And then the world came back.
The smell of the black blood that drenched my balaclava mask made my headache worse. I tasted my own blood in my mouth. The piercing car alarm was annoying. And the pain. The fucking pain! Agony and suffering that I had never felt before.
I exposed my lower face, pulling up my mask with my left hand. I could barely move my right hand, but I turned my palm upwards and summoned the Blanchette mask. Fuck yeah, my power still worked. I was anxious that I might not be able to do it. My arm hadn’t sufficiently healed to bring the mask up to my face. So, I curled down, squishing my exposed innards, so I could wear the mask.
And the mask becomes a face.
There are a lot of fuckers that need to be fucked up!
