Chapter 41: Hellfire Invasion (6): Fight for the tower(2)
The door was locked, the shutter down, and I had no way to get in. The only way in was a console by the right of it but I did not know how to operate it.
And the door did not look like one to give in under brute force, it was thick, and the hinges somewhere out of sight.
I eyed the two dead bodies, they had their clothes…well remnants of their clothes on, they were rags but they still had pockets, maybe I could find something.
Taking a knee beside the bodies, I moved my hands, tuning over one corpse, one of his chest pockets had been torn open to make way for a broader shoulder. Pulling my hand into his other chest pocket, it was wet, probably blood pooling underneath. Annoying. Still, I had to dig.
Marking a mostly intact side pocket on the corpse's pants, I pushed my fingers in, they were hedged in tight, mostly because the transformed corpses had very thick legs and they had stretched the fabric to its limits.
And then I felt it. My bare fingers brushed past its skin. My world stopped. And within a blink, I was in a void still sitting against the corpse. Everything besides us had disappeared. Gone into the inky darkness.
The crystals that I had first seen when I made foragers all slightly faded and cracked stood across me.
My thoughts could barely keep pace with what I saw.
But I felt an instinct.
An instinct to dive my hands into the flesh I was touching and…morphe it. Break it down. Make it into something more, something mine. Assimilate what I wanted and discard what I didn't, but what was I to assimilate? Maybe, maybe their flesh? Then use what was left to make more. Make more. Make what? What? Servants, yes. Slaves, yes.
Devour.
Devour, assimilate.
Devour, assimilate, gain.
Devour, assimilate, gain, discard.
Devour, assimilate, gain, discard, create.
It was like a gentle embrace like a mother's, slowly pulling me closer, my thoughts blurring as I felt morphing into a beast driven by instinct.
A beast of instinct? How, how, how, fucking disdainful. Me, me! A being of logic falling to my instincts? To become a beast driven by desire? By emotion!? HOW FUCKING DISDIANFULL!
Thunder went through my body and with every bit of me I pulled back my arm. It was as if I was tearing my arm from a vice grip, as I was fighting a million small skewers determined to keep me in.
But I gritted my teeth, forcing every bit of me to scream and pull.
Pull!
Again!
Again!
One more!
And then there was light. The colour came after, red dropping crimson on the side of my visor. It was blood. Not mine, if it was, I should've been in pain—I wasn't.
Then I noticed, my arm barely an inch from my helmet, it dripped with crimson blood, thread-like flesh tendrils shooting off it, tearing through the gel fabric and metal welds.
My eyes pulled to the sight of the corpse's chest—There was a gaping hole where blood pooled together and it was where the heart should've been, but all there was, was mush, broken ribs mixed with the blood and pieces of a crushed heart into a satanic soup. And from the looks of it should fit my arm just fine.
Shit, damn it, I quickly shifted my eyes to the top of the hallway, cameras! FUCK! Shit, they know. No, no, they will know…they don't know just yet, yes, I need to fry their data stores. How? I am not a hacker, only one way then, I need to get to the hardware. The SSDs must be in a central NAS. Get to it and burn it.
Yeah then help the JL. No! No…no, Stop! Stop, don't panic. Deep breaths, deeeeeep breaths. Think.
There were demons standing here, if the cameras worked the whole station would be up-at-arms about it. They were not. So the cameras don't work.
And more demons are inside, shapeshifters and body snatchers, the heroes had not broken out yet neither had the demons, so they were still fighting or they were at a standstill.
Hundreds of the Earth's mightiest are there, holding the fort. Worst case scenario I shoot Raven and end Trigon's bid but that won't look good, would it? Maybe convincing her to sacrifice herself for the sake of the world would be an idea? Yes, it would.
Fuck. There had to be some way, my eyes were again drawn to the corpses and then to my bloody arm.
Ah, damn it. I wanted it to be a controlled experiment but I don't have a choice now, do I?
Kneeling against the body, I pulled my blood-drenched clothes up, showing me a surprisingly pristine arm, then I hovered my arm up the cesspool, took a breath, and plunged.
Again the world faded, again the crystals came, the instincts followed, then began the chant, a defining symphony of the same few words: Devour, Assimilate, Gain, Discard, Create.
Devour-Assimilate-Gain-Discard-Create.
DevourAssimilateGainDiscardCreate.
Instincts started to flow into me, my body moved to do it, on its own. I pushed my will in, like a full moon tide flooding in to clog the gears of a machine with sand. It strained to move against my will, still trying to reach deeper, bury deeper into the body, trying to reach for—something but what? It was moving, slithering, around me. Before I knew it was wrapped around me completely.
Then I slipped, one tendril flew past me like a missile.
Before I could even move to do something, the crystals started to shake, to quake and wither, they broke down into fine powder, and then they started to flow, they flowed—directly into me.
Like a stream of silver shifting with each blink, they moved like a Mirage and before I could even try to back away they crashed into me, tearing through my skin, shards bleeding and sinking deeper with each second that passed, but I did not move because I did not feel pain, no, I felt pleasure. Like all my nerves were on fire, my whole body burned up and none of it was painful. As if the finest wine in the world was going down my lips.
Then it all stopped, the world became real again, just one thing missing, the corpse was gone. And another thing, my body was light as a feather. I pushed against the floor, trying to stand up only to nearly stumble as I realise I had almost thrown myself back.
Then another thing, my body was reaching against my battle dress, what was once slightly baggy was now just a little tight.
Fuck! I failed to control it.
My eyes ran down my body, tall was the first thing that came to mind, I was nine and as tall as a teen…and curvy like someone even older. God fucking damn it, how was I going to explain this!?
Still, as I felt the blood ram my veins, the weightlessness of my flesh, I felt it all almost worth it.
I can't control my instincts to devour. If I had done that in public I would be so fucked, especially given that there was one less dead body on the ground and a lot more blood and guts.
This was going to be a headache when Batman sees me but, for now, I knew what I had to do.
Moving quickly I moved next to the shutter door, it was a rolling down type of thing, the same kind you would see at shops, just one difference, the upper structure was hidden underneath a metal box that almost touched the metal of the door.
I stacked myself against the roll-down the metal of the door pushed my hands up to grab at the edges of the metal, catching it I buried more of my arms up the empty space and then did something very simple, started bawling my hands into fists as the fingers turned and the palm pushed back against the metal, something had to give.
And while my hands trembled against the amount of force they felt, eventually my left hand was able to force a small opening just below the hinges. A smile gripped my lips as I pulled my right hand down and dug out a grenade and with my palm wrapped around it and thumb sliding into the pin, I rammed it to the side of my left arm, it was able to find some purchase and then in one swift motion, I dragged back my left hand and wedged the grenade in its place with only my thumb. It was getting squeezed but it was a decent build and would hopefully hold.
Placing my feet in a kicking position against the door, and with only my thumb in the pin, as hard as I could, then I kicked.
It threw me back into a backward jump, I flew in the air as I felt the metal pin fly with me still around my thumb. I knew it was a success for only a second later, a puff of burning smoke flew down the lining of the box like a Dragon's breath leaking from the edges of its jaws. A thunderclap and the whole metal box were blown right off along with the hinge, showing me the scene inside the bridge.
Mid-air my arms instinctively moved to my gun, and they were levelled with lighting efficiency—the Magnum's sights caught a Zatanna, eyes glowing crimson, her hands in the air, and magic burning around her, she was maintaining a spell. The gun slid back, recoiled into me but it barely moved and with the sound of a hammer striking hot iron it the bullet was off.
"Ahhhhhhhh!" She screeched like a banshee but I had no time to try to make her scream again as I felt my body crash into the ground, no pain felt I scrambled and pushed myself up and looked at the Magical girl. Her kneecap was torn completely off and her scream meant one thing, the spell was off and if that black smoke puffing up from her chest was anything to go by, she was free too.
Interesting that the Heroes were not turned into monsters.
That instant, I heard it, a boom was being waged inside the room, explosions, metal bashing on more metal, it sounded like a deadly fight.
I jumped up and from my waist pulled as many Flashbangs as I could from my side. Seconds before I charged in, three flashbangs were delivered into the air, my gift—the world lit up in white and a deafening bloom of noise, the doors kept me safe from most of it.
Then I jumped in, the whole of the room focused on me for a second, and I too saw that the fighting was cut off by a deadman's land in the middle, there were hundreds of heroes here, and they managed to make the middle of a room as tall as an apartment a no man's land. The reason I was able to get to her so easily was because this place was the furthest in their backline. I had essentially appeared behind them.
Still, many of the possessed heroes immediately turned around. I did not have time to care for assessing more of the situation. Wish I had my foragers.
Quickly choosing to slide off directly to Zatanna, I landed next to her and pulled another flashbang, now that the noise cancellation was off, the whole station would be here in a few seconds, just extract Zatanna, after all I don't think the murder of a Leaguer would be good on my resume.
"It is that girl, friend of Raven. Kill her," Drawing my gaze to the source I spotted a possessed Aquaman shouting, his fingers pointed at me.
At his command, a dozen or so heroes charged straight at me.
I pulled the pin on my Flashbang.
Another deafening haze, I was affected too, but I moved my body without caring, dropping low and quickly grabbing Zatanna in a princess carry. I bolted, retracing my steps. My eyes did not see for a second and my ears did not hear but my body moved, I did not need sight or hearing to remember my path.
"Terrible little girl! I shall raze your home and burn your whole family!" Threats were made from behind, in response I only dropped another flashbangs.
A pained groan left Aquaman, "FUCK! KILL HER AND DRING ME HER CORPSE!"
"I have one last flash you know?" My words were smiling, and as I stepped out of the room to be greeted by a dozen heroes rushing in I realised, we had them by the balls.
Putting down Zatanna into the hands of another woman, my body turned to the bastard who had ordered me fucked. A smirk dawned on my lips as if saying fuck you.
Aquaman's teeth gritted together, he looked around, taking everything in before shouting, "Halt! Immediately. All of you! Else we destroy our vessels," His words were accompanied by his trident moving to his neck.
It was like a ceasefire had been declared with his words, as the possessed heroes followed his example and put their weapons to their throats, the normal heroes backed off.
"Now. Hand over the girl—" Before Aquaman's voice could even finish, "No," Batman declared in an even voice, I could see from the corner of my eye, he had five possessed heroes around him and three at his feet, including Flash who looked completely knocked out.
As the Demons eyed the heroes, I knew something had to give, either Batman gave way or the demons and if I knew anything about these people as soon as blood started drilling it would be the League.
But for now, there was silence, even though the heroes were all eyeing up one or two of their counterparts to knock out.
Still, they were powerful demons, they had not done this before, this was new, and they were not brain-dead, they should have been using this as a threat from the start, then why? Maybe he only did it because he felt he had no choice? Why, though? No tactical reason, then why? Why would you intentionally throw away such a good strategy? Why?
A sense of honour? Bullshit. A code of conduct? Fuck off. Rules of war? As if.
Then what? What would a world-destroying army have? Pride…?
Right. It was worth a shot.
Pushing my lips into an upward curve, I let out a small chuckle, more of a snort really, in the deathly silence of the ceasefire my voice cut through to the other end of the room easily.
It was like a shower of gazes, all stacking up on me, I ignored them all, "Proud, demons of hell, this is what it has come to? Taking hostages? Really living up to the name—"
"You!" Aqua-demon cut me off, "You insolent spawn of man. You will be first I offer my lord when he descends. Be quiet if you wish for all your limbs to be attached when I do."
That is not a good image but I had to buy time, if only for someone to do something. It did not feel right to bet a war on some vague hope but hell, shoot out the window Recker, maybe you will save us all.
"Lord this, lord that! Who the fuck is your lord anyway?" I threw back, and his lips crumpled up in anger.
"Trigon," It was another voice that joined us, it was Raven.
She was floating down towards us coated in her purple hue, and another set of eyes glowing just above her real one, "My father." Hippity, fucking due. About time you said that, "I will go with you, you let them all go."
I moved my eyes off her and to Batman, if we were doing a deal there were far better men to do it, "If she is to go with you, you will leave all of the League members here, free them of your possession and turn back the staff."
The Aqua thing nodded, he was finally smiling, "We will leave your kind Batman, for now. But know this, those we transformed can not be reverted for they have already been taken by our Lord Trigon."
Batman's stoic mask broke into a frown , I could almost hear him swear bloody murder under his breath. And I could tell as my eyes went to the giant ass laser behind him, I realised why he pumped money into it.
I almost want to see Trigon come to Earth now—really want to see how he deals with the Hammer of Dawn.
And with that, a portal opened up, just to the side of Raven, another flesh wound to the fabric of the world. She walked in and Aquaman followed, but only him as the rest of their Heroes released black smoke from their mouths and collapsed.
As a guy from the 'relief' team, to whom I had my back turned, collapsed next to me, a cold sweat travelled down my spine.
"That…I was so fucked," Words left my mouth and I could almost feel someone nodd to me.
Good fucking thing Raven gave herself up.
Weekly Power Status
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