[REND] 20.2 - Big Bad Wolf to the Rescue

Chunks of flesh flew as Tentacle Pile groaned like a walrus with indigestion. Its torn tentacles sprayed acid on me. The sharp-smelling liquid ate my skin away and dissolved my flesh. My regeneration fought back, even as the acid also melted new flesh.

Pretty strong stuff. It was equal parts itchy and painful. And annoying as fuck!

My predator mind shifted its cravings away from Dario. Rage focused on the stinking Tentacle Pile. I was going to kill whatever this insolent abomination was! Where the fuck was its brain? Where was its heart? I detected several heartbeats inside the mass of flesh. Like a dozen or so. Seems like more brains too.

It really was made up of many people. Stupid power that wasn’t for introverts. On the bright side, there was more food!

I dug into Tentacle Pile like the world’s most eager mole. The difference was that I also ate while digging; I chomped on anything in front of me, targeting the spots where I detected hearts. I soon found one. I ripped it out of the nest of veins around it. Tentacle Pile’s blood, which was also acidic, splashed on my face.

“Ghraagh!” I was blinded for a moment as my eyeballs burned. The front of my snout got hit by acid, too, and I could smell only my dissolving flesh. Suction cups on some tentacles absorbed bits of me.

The utter disrespect! How dare my prey try to eat me? 

My mind blanked. All I could think of was to kill and eat my prey. I clawed and slashed away flesh. I bit and swallowed everything that felt alive. My prey—I forgot the nickname I gave it—felt afraid. It was a monstrous amalgamation of bodies, but I could somehow sense its fear. Its remaining hearts beat faster. The veins running through the hundreds of tentacles pumped blood faster.

It also exuded the scent of fear. Such a sweet scent that made me giddy. All prey had that when they were about to die.

The end was coming for it. Yet, my prey continued to put up a challenge, hitting me with spiked tentacles, clobbering me with bony appendages, and squirting more acid. I continued to kill it. This pathetic mound of flesh couldn’t get me off of—

A blow hit my midsection, lifting me off my prey. With my split-second reflex, I anchored my claws on the massive tentacle that slammed my abdomen. Predicting my move, my prey used a bladed tendril to chop off the tentacle I had grabbed onto.

I was flying with a slab of wriggling in my grasp. I backflipped to do a cool pose as I landed. That should be in the movie trailer.

Movie trailer? I regained control of my senses. Tentacle Pile was weakened, and I had gotten much stronger during that eating session. I was in my sort-of-furry-Amazon-warrior stage. All my injuries had mostly healed.

I was about to chase my prey to finish it off—it was now half its size, its slimy blood burning the concrete ground as it fled—when a hulking golem lumbered past me. It was Myra carrying a forklift above her head.

I could hear her scream through her helmet, “It’s my turn!”

Tentacle Pile lashed out with its tendrils. Myra grew her own tentacles, metal ones from the forklift she was absorbing, to parry those of Tentacle Pile. Myra then brought down the warped remains of the forklift on Tentacle Pile. Really cool to use vehicles like that. I should try that next time.

The Adumbrae’s body burst in multiple places, with a huge splash of acid, liquifying the front of Myra’s armor. But it was no problem for her. She raised the forklift again. Tentacle Pile feebly continued trying to flee. Its tentacles extended to a bunch of crates nearby and pulled out a hiding human. Guessing Tentacle Pile’s power, it was going to absorb the random guy to heal itself.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Myra smashed Tentacle Pile again with the forklift.

It was dead—I no longer craved it. Stupid Myra stealing my kill. But it was all good—Tentacled Pile sucked as prey because it looked pathetic. The human it had grabbed also died because of the acid on its tentacle. Too bad for that guy. The lesson here was to run far away when monsters were fighting.

I was mostly cute and lovable Erind in my head again. The crazy predator in me had forgotten about Dario. Not sure if it was because of the distance between us or due to my recent large meal. There was plenty left to learn about how my powers worked, but it was difficult to test since it involved eating and killing people.

I walked over to Myra. What did she think of me?

“Wow, you look a bit different now,” she said, turning around and looking me over. Part of her helmet folded away to reveal more of her eyes. Her massive fists were half-raised. “You’re an Adumbrae, I’m guessing?”

“Ghraagh roahrrr hrarg…” Chicken and waffles with maple syrup. I could say anything and she wouldn’t understand me.

“I… can’t understand what you’re saying, with that, uh, mouth. But I can tell what you mean. Sorry for the stupid question. What else would you be?” Myra started to speak faster. “Listen. My sister’s an Adumbrae. I’m not—it’s a long story why I have powers. Anyway, my sister is an Adumbrae like you. Her name’s Kelsey. Do you know her?”

I tilted my head, staring at Myra’s eyes as if I was weighing how to respond. Then, I nodded. This was going to be fun.

“You do?” Myra almost shouted. “A fucking lead, finally! I suspected she was contacting other Adumbrae before running away. I didn’t think there’d be any real Adumbrae in the city. So, that was why she—” Myra shook her head. “Anyway, where’s Kelsey right now? I’ve been looking for her everywhere!”

I paused for a couple of moments before I shrugged and shook my head.

“Huh? You truly don’t know?” Myra went down on one knee as if to propose. “My sister went missing during the Adumbrae attack on the trains. You know about that, don’t you? You know what the bastards who run this place are up to?”

I immediately nodded. Myra should be intelligent enough to reach the next conclusion that I wanted her to.

“Then you must be the woman who saved Erind and Deen,” she said. “They’re the two girls in the warehouse compound some distance from Marsh Row. You probably remember them—a short girl with black hair and a tall blonde. They were kidnapped by—”

I nodded again. Myra was following the script. Great! Fuck her for describing me as ‘short’ though, even if it was true.

I could already imagine Myra sharing this encounter with the hero wannabes… and me. She’d claim that we could trust my monster self, clouded by her desire to find Kelsey. Dario would oppose her, saying that this mysterious wolf woman attacked him. Myra would then say that we had worked together to take down another Adumbrae.

I could also add that I recalled her being a wolf, and she didn’t harm us. Dario would be the odd one out. I could also point out how suspicious it was that the wolf Adumbrae showed up during their missions. It had been twice already. Maybe they had a traitor in their midst—it couldn’t be Deen or me because we were newcomers. Dario might suspect Myra. If I picked the correct dialogue options, I might cause a rift in their group.

Oh, that juicy drama!

But this wasn’t about causing chaos, because I could—just partly about that. I’d also learn about the stance of the other hero wannabes on working with an Adumbrae.

And what would Deen think about the wolf Adumbrae? We could have our own conversation about what happened. Would it be a good idea to reveal to Deen that it was me who saved us all along? That I was an Adumbrae?

“Do you have an idea where Kelsey could be?” Myra asked, popping my imaginings of various scenes.

I hesitated for a noticeable moment before shaking my head. This contrasted with my immediate nods to prior questions. I could tell just from Myra’s eyes that she suspected I was hiding something. Which was true. But it was different from what she thought. I intended for Myra to assume I was hiding information about Kelsey.

“Are you on our side?” she asked. “It’s probably not accurate to say that. Like, we both want to destroy this place, right? We have the same goal.”

I nodded again. Then I pointed in the direction of the large warehouse. “Raorgh!” Mayonnaise! I headed to the rest of the fighting before Myra could say more.

Myra followed me because she didn’t have any other choice. “My friends are there! I’m supposed to help them. We will help them.” Each of her steps made the ground shake. “Can you tell me more about Kelsey? How did you know her?”

“Croarrgh hraark…” I love sugar.

“This is difficult,” Myra said. “We’ll have to talk after this, okay? Come with us since—oh, that might not be a good idea. The others don’t like Adumbrae.”

“Ghraooora?” Meatballs? Been a while since I had eaten spaghetti and meatballs.

“There’s no problem! They know not all Adumbrae are bad, like my sister. I have to know more about her. Let’s destroy that warehouse quickly and leave.”

On our way to the warehouse, we spotted monsters chasing dock workers. There was a creature with the upper body of a ghoulish humanoid and the lower half of a snake. It was definitely a mutant, a failed Adumbrae experiment gone feral, because it was more intent on squeezing the workers it had caught in its coiled tail than to attack us. That, or it was a guard who gained powers from killing other people, just like Tentacle Pile.

The two monsters fighting each other on top of a shipping container was more evidence that these were mutants. Deen and the hero wannabes had succeeded in releasing them—an important part of their upcoming escape phase. The lack of guards rounding up the rowdy monsters meant that they were too busy dealing with Dario’s group. All seemed to be going according to plan.

We ignored the mutants because they were also ignoring us. They probably operated on baser instincts and instinctively realized that they shouldn’t mess with us, instead going for easier prey like the normal humans.

I observed Myra to see if she was going to help the scared people. She didn’t. We were getting close to the snake mutant thingy. Would she ignore the dying guys literally screaming for help?

Just the same, Myra didn’t lift a rocky finger. And the workers were dead.

The mutant bent down, stretching its jaws wide to bite down on the corpses. Snakey Man released the half-eaten bodies and slithered away when we passed. Snakey Man? That sucked as a name.  

If ‘centaur’ referred to a half-man and half-horse creature, and a ‘minotaur’ was a half-bull, half-man, what would a half-man, half-snake creature be called? Snaketaur?

“Rhargh roaarh?” What does ‘taur’ mean?

“Yes, I’m going in first,” Myra replied. She had grown larger, having repaired her damaged armor. “We wouldn’t want my friends attacking you. Here goes! Yaaahhh!” She smashed into the warehouse wall. Smoke rolled out of the opening she made.

Was Deen still alive? Unless she stupidly disobeyed her Guardian Angel, she should be. And if the hero wannabes were with her, they’d most likely be alive too, especially because they had boosters. The asshole Dario should be somewhere here as well, partially healed or something.

Instead of just Myra and Dario telling the others about me, it’d be fun if they all saw me! I pulled myself away from daydreaming about all sorts of scenarios, following Myra to the chaos inside, ready to fight.

The scent of a lot of blood mixed with the smoke. A lot of burning stuff, chemicals too. This must be the work of Everett. Myra and I still hadn’t passed dead bodies because we entered the side of the warehouse stacked high with crates and sacks. Myra barreled into them, and we stepped into a more open area of the warehouse.

“What in the Mother Core’s name is this?” Myra slowed down as we came upon a house-sized metal box.

I growled, my lips quivering while baring my fangs. Something extremely large and powerful was inside. This was the first time my instincts had told me to be careful. Bad news.  

“Looks important.” Myra grew another set of arms out of her back, copying Smug Corpse’s style. “It would be a shame if something happened to it. I’ll break this open and—Huh?”

I stepped in front of her and shook my head.

“I shouldn’t? But we should deal maximum damage to these bastards!”

I wasn’t listening to Myra. I cocked my head. Someone had shouted.

“Blanchette! Help!”

Was that Deen’s voice? It’s really her!

Did she say ‘Blanchette’? Who the fuck—? Wait. I had told her about a version of Little Red Riding Hood where the main character had a name. It was Blanchette. This wasn’t a coincidence that she was calling for Blanchette now that I was here. But how did she know that I was here, or that I was this Adumbrae?

The answer was Deen didn’t know. Her Guardian Angel told her to call for Blanchette to get my attention. Meaning, she was in big trouble. I had to save the giver of free pastries!

Myra raised her fists. “I’m going to see what’s inside this box. Hey, where are you going? Don’t leave!”

I rushed to the sound of Deen’s voice, bouncing from one pile of crates to the next. Someone shot at me—probably Clay Coward’s dummies. I ignored them. I passed dead bodies and lots of open containers that used to hold mutants. And I reached Deen in a few seconds.

She was wearing a ski mask, kneeling on the ground. I knew it was her because of her scent—that stupid perfume she always wore. Only now did I recognize that it was scented cotton candy. I couldn’t tell what it was before. She was beside Reo splayed on the ground. He wasn’t wearing a mask, probably losing it somewhere. His head bloodied.

Someone was strong enough to hurt Reo?

Looking to the right, I spotted Everett… with the head of a woman growing out of his right shoulder. An Adumbrae? The hell was that power? The woman’s neck extended, raising her head as she cackled.

“Deen, run!” Everett shouted. “I can’t control—argh!” His body convulsed.  

“This is a great body!” Snakey Head exclaimed with glee. “I’m going to use you to kill your friends. Or I could steal their bodies—huh?” She twisted her snake-like neck and turned around.

I landed behind Everett and chomped on Snakey Head.