Heart of Darkness Chapter 11: Dead Man's Party

Previously: Visionary has been infected with the spore of Nyarlurkhotep, herald of the Fairly Great Old Ones. Not only has this meant heart problems for poor Vizh, but it also means his soul is being hollowed out to make room for this nasty elder-god thing to take over. Plus, it means accidentally going on a date with Urthula, party ghoul, to the Willow Night Club, where a Sorting Hat (see: Harry Potter rip-offs) was placed on his head to determine his identity for Crime boss Camellia of the Fey.

Luckily, Vizh has friends who are looking to help him. Miiri discovered something in the Shoggoths library, and absconded with the knowledge, locking Ebony in the vault behind her. Hallie tried to find a cure but was thwarted by her own quasi-love interest, Mr. Epitome. And Yo and the Psychic Samurai have searched out Vizh for the purpose of keeping him out of trouble.

Unfortunately, they might be a little too late, seeing how one pissed off Ghoul is searching for Vizh to kill him and win back Urthula’s affections, and monster hunter Desmond Djinn has already found Vizh and put a bullet into his head.

Yeah, that last part is probably the bit you should focus on.

Visionary blinked. He stood in a grey, featureless plain. It was at once both familiar and unsettling. “Hello?” he called out. “Usually there’s somebody here to tell me how I’m not dead…”

“You’re not dead” a voice answered from behind him.

The confused Regular spun around to find himself face to face with at a man who looked remarkably like himself, only less so. “You’re not the usual guy…” Visionary noted.

“Get shot in the head a lot, do you?” the reflection responded.

“Well, no…” he admitted. “Not as much as you’d expect, anyway. It’s just… this place isn’t usually so grey…”

“Yes” the other man replied. “It’s getting kind of shabby in here. Really ought to have someone come in and clean the place once in a while. Those little stains tends to build up, you know.”

Visionary looked over the man warily. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he knew he didn’t like this place, or the company one bit. “What’s this about?” he asked defensively.

“It’s about… time” the other answered. “Yes. Definitely about time. Time for me to be going, and you to… well, just go. After all, I have things to do, while you… not so much.”

The Legionnaire narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?”

“Why, me? I’m Visionary, through and through.”

“You’re not me” Visionary accused.

The other man leaned in close to his doggleganger. “Oh, I will be” the reflection assured him.

“VIZH!” Urthula screamed as the Regular’s head blew backwards from the shot, toppling him and his chair over onto the dance floor. She dropped beside him and cradled his head in her lap, moving to lift the fallen Sorting Hat off his face so she could see the damage.

“Urthula Underess” Desmond Djinn greeted her, cocking his pistol. The crowd screamed and scattered from the man with the smoking handgun and the shining blue skin, though the relentless beat of the music kept the further reaches of the clubgoers dancing obliviously. “A low class target, but as long as I’m here…”

“Who are you calling ‘Low Class’, you diseased ass of a warthog?” she growled to the man looming over her. “Exuro in Abyssus!” she spat, and blackness seethed out of her outstretched hands to overwhelm her adversary.

Djinn simply shrugged it off as the darkness burned away wherever it made contact with his suit. “I’ve converted this efreet skin into a mystical dead-zone” he informed her with contempt, right before he slapped her so quickly she didn’t even see the blow coming. As the back of his hand struck her cheek with a crushing force, the glamour concealing her true features shattered and fell away. “But the stink of your magic still offends me.”

“Urthula?” Trudi Wooster gasped in shock, taking in the gaunt, sunken features, grey skin and burning red eyes of the ghoul girl for the first time. She flinched as the man in blue turned on her. “Don’t hit me!” she yelled in alarm. “I’m too popular to be ugly!”

He looked as if he were about to say something when a hail of bullets slammed into him from behind, forcing him to a knee. Trudi and Jenni curled up against each other on the floor covering their heads as the table above them was reduced to splinters.

“Excuse me” Djinn snorted when a break in the gunfire finally arrived. He stood up, unscarred, and removed two uzi submachine guns from the clips around his waist. Each held a long magazine labeled “hollow point/iron”. He turned to face Camellia’s responding security force with an eager light in his eyes and bullets sprayed the club once more.

“Sis?” Jenni called, still covering her head under the remains of the tablecloth.

“Yeah?” Trudi answered loudly over the thunderous exchange of automatic fire.

“We’re still not going to admit to Michael that he was right, are we?”

Urthula blinked several times in an effort to focus her vision. Someone was leaning over her, shaking her slightly, and from the feel of things she was sprawled across some guy. Not the first time she had awoken in such circumstances, although the shooting pain in her left eye socket was new…

Djinn! The last ten minutes suddenly came rushing back to her. They had been attacked by self-proclaimed monster hunter Desmond Djinn! Trudi Wooster was attempting to wake her… And the man with his face crushed into her bosom was…

“Vizh!” she called, dragging her bones off of him. “Are you alright… tell me you’re okay..!”

The Sorting Hat covering his face shook itself until its wrinkles regained some semblance of human features. “Sure, toots… I’m fine” it managed out of the corner of its mouth. It made an elaborate chewing motion then spit a perfectly preserved bullet from between its lips. “Thanks for the cuddle, by the way.”

Urthula looked at the bullet in confusion, then slid the Hat up far enough to see Visionary’s unbroken forehead, complete with a rapidly swelling knot at the point of impact. “What… how…?”

“Just a little trick I picked up from my days in the circus back in the 1850’s” the hat said. “In fact, I used to share a tent with this singer who could do the most interesting things with a trapeze…”

“Is he alive?” Urthula asked, skipping the anecdote.

“What? This guy? Sort of” it answered with a maddening vagueness. “It’s kind of up in the air right now… and I’ve never really understood what that whole “that which can eternal lie” thing means anyway.”

The ghoul sucked in her breath as she began to get a glimmer of what was happening here tonight. “What’s inside him?”

“The growing seed of Nyarlurkkotep, the Crawling Chaos, Herald of the Fairly Great Old Ones, Scourge of Hatshepsut, Blight of the Endless Night, Defiler of…”

“Right, got it.” She interrupted. “And you’re sure about this?”

“Lady, it’s my job to know what the deal is with whomever consents to put me on. This guy is rotting from the inside out.”

Urthula gave a pained grimace. “Is he going to make it?”

“Are any of us?” Trudi yelled over the gunfight decimating the club. “We need help! We need the Marines! We need…”

Jenni dove across to the prone Visionary and started pulling at his pants.

“Hey… get your own date…” Urthula growled.

The Wooster twin ignored her as her fingers finally closed on that for which she was searching. “Aha!” she noted triumphantly, producing a Lair Legion Communicard from his pocket. She started jamming buttons indiscriminately. “Jenni Wooster to Hatman! Jenni to Hatman! Come in Hatman! This is a priority dance club emergency!”

“Oooh… good idea!” Trudi noted. “Maybe he’ll stay and party with us on the floor afterwards!”

A disco ball fell from the ceiling far above them to shatter the chair next to Trudi’s head into splinters.

“Or maybe we should just turn in early…” she suggested.

Urthula turned back to the Sorting Hat. “Is he going to make it?” she asked.

“That…” the hat replied judiciously, “…is a very good question.”

“Gahh!” Visionary complained bitterly as the other him stepped on the back of his neck and twisted one of his arms unnaturally far behind his back. “Owowowowowowowow…”

“This is degrading for both of us” the reflection said. “Or rather, for me, since I’m going to be us now.”

“You’re… not… me...!” the Regular insisted again.

“Everyone likes to think that at first” the other noted. “But that’s really the lovely thing about humanity… We all have such ugly, dark corners of our souls. Ours is certainly no exception. Oh, sure… you’ve repressed the weaselish part of your nature for quite a while now… Played the respectable role ever since our wife dumped us and took off for greener pastures. Ever since that obnoxious little fire demon came to stay with us… and you took her in because we were so pathetically lonely living by ourself.”

“That’s… not what… urg!... happened..!”

“Oh, come now… Part of you thinks it is. And that’s how you know I’m really us.” He gave Visionary’s arm an extra hard twist for good measure. “I’m the part of us that notices all the faults of everyone we hold dear, and hates them just a little for them. I’m the one that seethes at every dig at our expense… every put down, every tease. I’m the one that makes you nervous when your precious Caphans, or the Fashion Tart, or the Void Bitch come on to us, or pretend to, or don’t even realize that’s how we’d take it. And I’m the one that resents it when everyone treats us like some great big cuddly neutered nothing.” He paused to let out a deep breath. “It’s just that before, I was diluted… whisps, scurrying around the corners of this place. But then, I was given a bit of grit to form around… and it didn’t take all that much worrying at it until I grew into the gem you see before you today.”

“Urk…”

“You know what the beauty of it is?” He continued. “From the moment I reached into us to find a way to Lemuria and those green skinned whores of ours, I knew it… I just knew that we were the weak link. The soft spot… The heart. We’ve been a great manipulative bastard, you know that? All those insecurities driving us to reach out, make friends… weasel our way into the lives of our betters, hoping they won’t wake up and cast us out before they become too attached. Like some great, disgusting parasite. How marvelous. And now… Now I’ll be able to suck them dry. Eat them alive… because I’m already in.”

“You…” Visionary grunted, finally understanding. “You’re… Nyarlurkhotep!”

“Always the last to know” the other sighed. “Though no… not quite yet. But I will be.”

“Urg… What… happened to… we?” the Legionnaire growled bitterly.

“You?” the evil entity responded with a shrug. “I dare say there won’t even be whisps enough left of you. I plan on keeping our… or should I say my soul tidier, after all.”

Desmond Djinn calmly ejected the magazines from each weapon and replaced them with fresh ones before returning the guns to his belt. “Pfeh… Fairies” he noted dismissively, turning from the carnage of the security of the House of Camellia. Of the witch-queen herself, there was no sign. Obviously whisked away by that man of her… Oxalis, they called him. She was definitely in for a rude awakening when she reached the perimeter. Nobody else gets out alive. Not tonight.

Unfortunately, that meant whatever crowd hadn’t already made it out as well. Those that weren’t collateral damage from the warzone on the dance floor were unconscious, or huddled, whimpering, under tables and along the walls. The gas grenades at the entrance had incapacitated most of them before they could really damage themselves. Not that it would matter when the firebombs went off. He double checked his watch and nodded. The transdimensional jamming field was active… severing the bridge between the club’s interior and the exterior which resided in downtown Parodiopolis. There was, quite literally, nowhere left to run… and he had plenty of time to enjoy the hunt.

He turned his attention back to the matter at hand. Urthula Underess… Ghoul. Suspected Necromancer. Burning was the most effective method to finish the job. Until then… dismemberment. He drew a short, shining blade from the weapons pack on his back, then flicked his wrist to extend it to three times its original length.

The living corpse glared at him. “We’ve called his friends… They’re on their way.”

“They won’t be coming” he assured the thing as he raised his arm for the blow that would split her head in half. “I’m afraid we’re out of reach.”

A blur of black and purple intercepted his maiming stroke. “They are already being here…” Yo noted levelly, deflecting Djinn’s sword with a rapier and grasping a free hand around the hunter’s throat in a shockingly powerful grip. “And you will be paying for hurting Visi.”

“Yo…” Djinn choked with a smirk. “Been… expecting… you.” He activated the switch on his belt for just this contingency, and the two men were instantly enveloped in a grey vapor.

The thought being gasped and staggered back, wheezing, to fall over the unmoving body of his friend. His eyes flashed with anger and something a bit different.

“Did you really think I’d go hunting Visionary without preparing to kill a Yo-being to get the job done?” The monster hunter did a quick visual assessment of his quarry. The Anti-Thought Serum wasn’t as fully effective as the research materials acquired from Dr. Moo would have lead them to believe… But then, Dr. Moo had created hers out of the alternate universe Anti-Yo. Djinn Enterprises had tried to recreate a substitute Anti-Thought from blood samples of the incredibly stupid Yurt. The Thought Being was debilitated… but not yet reduced to the mundane. The Ghoul bitch was trying to shield him as well. Best to try cleaving the brains of both and see if they were still capable of coherent thought.

Again, his downward stroke was deflected, this time by an ancient samurai sword wielded by a grim looking Japanese woman. He gave a heavy sigh. “And you are?” he asked irritably.

“Chiaki Bushido… though people know me as the Psychic Samurai.” She tilted her head slightly to the group behind her, though she never took her eyes off her adversary. “See to Visionary, Yo. I will deal with this monster.” She turned again to face him. “I am here to end your craven tormenting of the weak and unarmed.”

“Well, bully for you. And a psychic, no less. That’s a bit of a grey matter, no pun intended.” He grinned coldly, backing off to assess her threat level. “The research team is a bit divided as to whether it signifies a mystical origin in most cases, yours included.” He eyed her up and down carefully. “Of course, when I find someone using a sword as their primary weapon in the twenty-first century, I usually feel justified killing them simply on principle.”

She nodded her welcoming at this threat and shifted slightly to a ready position. His next strike came lightening fast, aiming to catch her on her leading shoulder, but she easily moved to intercept it. Again, he whipped his sword around, biting at her thigh, and again her reflexes mirrored his own, if they did not somehow precede his. “That’s a nice sword… exquisite nie” he noted as the two circled each other, moving farther out onto the dance floor. “A Masamune?”

“It is said to be” she replied flatly.

“And how did you come by such an exceptionally rare weapon?”

“A Masamune” she answered simply.

“Ah… ask a stupid question…” He renewed his attack, with much more ferocity, and this time he did not let up… the ringing of their blows clashed against the driving beat of the still thudding disco music. “Tell me, have you ever heard the legend of the master swordsmiths Muramasa and Masamune?” He kicked a bit of table from the rubble at their feet, sending it spinning towards her head, but the samurai woman deflected it and his swordstroke in one flawless movment and returned with three of her own which he smoothly countered. “It is said that the master Muramasa’s skill had grown to such an extent that he could create an edge more perfect than that of any sword by his predecessor, the legendary Masamune. It was decided that a test of their finest blades was in order…” He purposefully brought his blow wide to leave himself open to a counter thrust to the side, but the woman did not take the bait, flashing instead at his face. He blocked and countered, blocked and countered again. “Both swords were to be thrust, blade down, into the river bed amongst a gentle current…” He brought his elbow around to follow a parry, but she swayed back out of his reach and brought her own sword around simultaneously, nearly catching him on the exposed arm. In dodging her blade he received a kick to his side which shifted him to the defensive for the next half dozen strokes. “When they began the test, the fall leaves floating lazily along the stream would brush up against Muramasa’s blade and be effortlessly sheared in two. It was a display of perfection the world had never witnessed before.” She was moving more freely now, having gauged his skill level to her satisfaction. Her body spun and wove around his thrusts in more elaborate movements, and her sword solidly rejected his every attempt to harm her. “It was thought that there was no way that Masamune’s blade could match this feat, and so it proved true… in a way. For when they thrust his blade out into the center of the current, not a single leaf was cut… because no leaf would dare to even touch it.”

They separated and eyed each other across the dance floor once again. Both were breathing robustly, but neither had been pushing to the limits as of yet.

“Do you believe that tale, little samurai?” he asked curiously. “I know I don’t. Oh… don’t get me wrong… I’ll happily recycle every blade that has some bullshit story woven into its history, but I don’t really buy that one. You know, the thing about feudal Japan… they just didn’t like the new. Of course they couldn’t favor the newer work over the master’s. So even if Muramasa had discovered a better way of folding steel to produce a harder edge while still unbreakably strong, they had to attribute something mystical to Masamune’s work to keep it on top. But me? I’ll take scientific advantage any day…”

He attacked again, faster than before even. However, something in him signaled the change to the woman, and a the last moment she altered her stance, dodging instead of intercepting, and taking only a glancing blow off her own blade. Still, it was enough, and she let out a high grunt of pain and surprise as the jolt bit through her sword arm.

“Take my own blade, for example…” he noted, holding it up for her to admire. “Adamantinum, with a monofilament edge, microscopically thin. Can cut through the neck bones of any creature I’ve ever needed decapitated like it was going through hot butter. Add the ability to discharge the voltage of a Texas State Prison electric chair with the flip of a switch and, well… folded steel just seems so quaint.”

She merely nodded, then moved unbelievably fast… so much so that her motion was finished before he even registered it had begun. Where her sword should have been thrust halfway into his chest, however, there was merely the shimmering of particles as it had been redirected to slide off to his side under his armpit.

“Oh…” he noted casually. “Did I forget to mention the force field that can withstand the impact of a howitzer shell focused to less than a fraction of a square inch?” He brought his own weapon back around in a salute. “Won’t this duel be fun?”

“Visi?” Yo was saying in a tight voice with tears in the corner of his eyes as he gently shook his friend. “It’s time to get up now… Please. It’s been a really bad day.”

“You’re not talking like you usually do…” Trudi noted with concern. “Like all those guys who do your voice at improve clubs… ‘is being cuteness’ and that…”

“Yes” the semi-thought being responded. “I’m not quite myself. But I’m spared the British accent so far.” He turned his attention to Urthula. “What is wrong with him? This is not the wacky adventure he is supposed to be having…”

Before she could answer, they were interrupted by the presence of a giant glowing corpse in a remarkably ill-fitting suit. “Urthula! How could you have debased yourself with the living as you have? I swear, it is a testament to my love for you that I can stomach this world at all, let alone the chaffing from the tiny man’s pants.”

“Luminosis?” the ghoul woman asked in confusion, glancing up at the towering brute. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He looked down at her imperiously. “I have come to steal the heart of your paramour.”

She blinked. “Cripes, can nobody in this town get their own damn dates?”

“If I devour his organ, you will love me instead!”

“Actually, I’ve tried that route before…” Jenni observed. “And as much as guys enjoy that kind of thing, it doesn’t really make them love you…”

“Devour his heart, Jenni” Trudi whispered.

The other twin thought on that. “Oh! Nevermind.”

“You will stay away from Visi’s heart!” Yo warned angrily, stepping in front of the towering, stitched-together, radioactive monstrosity. “He’s having enough troubles for today already. Try again next week, and maybe we can schedule your ass to get kicked properly.”

Abyssal Luminosis of the Chernobyl Ghouls sighed and gave Yo a radioactive backhand across the room, sending the semi-thought being slamming into the two-story tall speakers which hammered out their beat incessantly. “Are all the men of the living such tiny, shrill things?” he grumbled.

There was a horrific electric squawk, and the music finally cut off. With the exception of Chiaki and Djinn, who were still locked in deadly combat, every eye in the room turned to see a mildly glowing Yo hefting the massive speaker over his head with a great deal of anger in his eyes. “Yo said you will stay away from Visi’s heart!” he demanded, striding forward easily despite his burden. “Yo might not be as smart as he should be, but Yo is noticing a definite side benefit to Yurt Anti-Thought!”

“Er… wait…” the Abyssal said, backing away slowly. “Yurt? I have heard of this…”

“Yo smash!” the Legionnaire growled, slamming a few tons of stereo equipment through the ghoul and into the floor.

Urthula shielded Visionary as debris fell from the ceiling, jarred loose from the slugfest between the two radioactive menaces. Beyond them, the swordfight continued unabated, although the samurai woman was on the complete defensive, doing everything she could just to stay alive at his point. The clubgoers that were left awake huddled in terror along the walls of the building. And her date was still a vegetable.

“What do we do now?” Trudi asked.

The ghoul cast about for an answer, but everything was such chaos she was having a hard time prioritizing. What they needed was a leader… Unfortunately, Yo had temporarily lost it. If only…

“Hat!” she cried, turning to the misshapen fabric on Visionary’s head. “You said he used to be the leader of all sorts of things, didn’t you?”

“Um… in title, yeah, sure…” it noted uneasily.

“Well, what would he want us to do now?”

“Hmmmm…” the hat considered this. “He’d tell you to get all the people out of here first, before any more of them got hurt.”

“You heard the chapeau, gals… We need to evacuate the building.”

“But all the exits are blocked!” Jenni answered, then scratched behind her head sheepishly. “I, um… might have had opportunity to check when the sword fighting first started…”

Urthula did a quick check on the wards, then swore. “Dammit… something’s interfering with the locks on this pocket dimension. We’re totally cut off…” she paused as she noticed an odd reaction to the wards comings from Visionary’s shirt. It looked like a tiny blob of dried jelly, but it read very strangely… She recited a minor incantation of activation and touched it.

There was a snapping of dimensional barriers as if they didn’t exist, and the tiny spot of jelly unfolded into a towering field of mind-mangling goo, before considerately folding back into a bandaged shape more appropriate for three dimensions. Visionary’s not changed yet… the Manga Shoggoth noted, taking stock of the situation. Who then tripped my alarm?

“She did it!” the Wooster twins announced, pointing to Urthula.

The loathsome elder beast raised what could only generously pass as an eyebrow, but the Ghoul ignored the issue. “You had Visionary… bugged?”

He is potentially becoming something very dangerous. Ebony convinced me to hold off on acting until it was absolutely necessary, and he is too far changed to hope.

“And… then?”

I must act.

“What does that mean?” Jenni whispered to her sister.

Trudi bit her lip. “Remember the ending to Old Yeller?”

There was a sickening twist in reality, and the room seemed to stretch like a rubber band. When it snapped back there were suddenly an outraged young Chinese girl and a green skinned woman in a bikini standing between the Shoggoth and Visionary. “Ley lo mo hum mah lao, si futt lou!!!!” the young girl yelled at the elder beast.

I… do not have a mother. the Shoggoth replied after a moment’s hesitation. And such an act seems highly unlikely, anatomically.

Chiaki was hurting. Her breathing was becoming labored as she spent all of her efforts dodging Djinn’s attacks, unable to deflect his blows on pain of electroshock which sapped even more strength out of her lead sword arm with every jolt. Yo was unable to assist her, locked in some mindless brutality with a glowing behemoth on the other side of the dance club. Tactically, Djinn had proven prepared for every effort to catch him off guard, be it by a change in maneuvers, or an unexpected avenue of attack. It was clear he had spent most of his adult life in combat, and his arsenal gave him a distinct advantage in this current round. She was going to eventually lose this fight. However, she had sworn to protect Visionary from this man with all her skill, and she would go out with honor.

“You missed the point of the fable of the sword makers” Chiaki informed him as she spun aside from his latest swing, landing a kick to his side to increase the distance between them. “It was not about which proved the sharper blade at all, but about the spirits within them. Muramasa’s swords were for the slaughter of war, and as such they craved destruction and bloodshed. The use of a Muramasa was to end the peace. Masamune’s weapons embodied the true soul of the Samurai, centered and in harmony… The use of a Masamune was to end the conflict. This is why gentle leaves were not sheared in twain. And this is why Muramasa’s works were always inferior.”

The hunter snorted. “Never much cared for fairy tales either way” he noted, swinging at her head. She dodged, but he managed to catch her on the knee with a savage kick of his own. She struggled to maintain her footing when the room stretched to an insane degree and suddenly snapped back into place, toppling her over into a pile of broken bar stools. Djinn grinned in triumph. “And any way, your ancient pig sticker is simply outclassed in this day and age. Welcome to the future, cow…” He raised a killing blow above his head.

Chiaki tried desperately to roll, but she was pinned in too tightly. She raised her sword to fend off the powered stroke as best she could when her katana suddenly burst into bright green flames. Djinn’s blade met hers in a resounding clang, and the flames licked up the energy cast by the modern weapon, channeling it back into the blue clad hunter with a vengeance. “She got an upgrade” a female voice growled out from the sword.

Chiaki regained her feet as Djinn screamed out in pain and fell back. Raising the hilt to eye level, she spied the tiny robotic drone clinging to it. “Hello?” she asked her surprising ally.

“We can get acquainted later” the drone suggested to her. “Right now, I really need to be in on a serious ass-kicking. Go ahead and fight back… I can counter his technological doodads.” The green flames seared brightly as the blue clad hunter looked on in shock. “And see if you can somehow get him dressed in some red and white as well. I’d find it all the more satisfying...”

“Is it safe?” Camellia asked as Oxalis directed the loading of the crate into the back of a delivery truck.

“This is the last of the major resources” he informed her. “We’ll be back up to full operations within ten days, regardless of what happens to the club.”

“Operations…? I don’t give the slightest *&^$ about some petty human drugs! Did you remove the package in the vault to a secure location?!”

“I sent a squad to load your plaything into an armored truck, yes” he answered brusquely. I’m more worried about breaking open the portal to the Mythlands right now, if you don’t mind…”

“A squad..?” she choked in disbelief. “Stupid Dafei! You’ve been dealing in human concerns for too long!!”

“It was only one mentally broken vagrant who hasn’t had the will to fight back for two years!” he called after her as she turned and hurried back up the hallway to the security control room. “What makes him so damn scary anyway?”

She ignored him and slammed the door behind her, punching up the security cameras. The chaos still reigned in the club’s disco, but that wasn’t her primary concern. She flipped channels until she found the one she was looking for. The detention vaults.

Body parts were strewn everywhere.

It was loose. Less than three years and the fenborn was loose again. And it had even left her a message written in blood along the walls, signed with that ridiculous name it had given itself. Anger boiled up in the fairy witch until she was livid. This was too much… Her house profaned, her business disrupted… but this… this was too much. She was compiling a list of bloody vengeance to wreak on her enemies when a lurch at the edges of her perceptions signaled that that oaf Oxalis had opened the dimensional portal. But then another, more tantalizing feeling hit her. It wasn’t Oxalis at all…

She cued up the security monitors of the main room to witness the showdown between the Shoggoth and two diminutive females… one human, one... Ah, that Caphan sex slave she had been reading about in the early edition. The one who was…

The Fairy Witch smiled. The fortunes of vengeance hadn’t deserted her, it seemed. She set about casting the incantations necessary for her long-term plans. After all, this was rightfully her domain, where her terms were most binding… And children… well, children were the kind of opportunities fairies liked best…

It is what Visionary would want should his soul be devoured by chaos… the Manga Shoggoth argued reasonably.

“True..." the sorting hat agreed. “Although he’s not too wild about the decapitation part.”

I could perhaps split him lengthwise, if it would be more in keeping with his wishes… the elder beast offered.

“There will be no splitting of Visionary!” Miiri yelled vehemently. “Please?” she added as an afterthought.

“Um… who are you people?” Urthula asked, eyeing the curvaceous green woman up and down.

“I am Miiri, the great Visionary’s former pleasure slave, and mother of his heir to be…” the Caphan introduced herself. “And you are?”

“Um… Urthula Underess” she answered, shaking hands. “And I thought I was his date for the evening, but…”

“Oh, then you are fortunate” Miiri encouraged her, pleased. “He is quite enjoyable to lay with as a lover… be sure to ask him if he will perform Laath-Suiith with you.”

“What’s that mean?” Jenni whispered.

“Er… it’s when you… um… Jeez, do I have to explain everything to you?” her sister answered irritably.

Liu Xi continued to string together words in Chinese that surely were not to be used in polite company while constantly shoving the Shoggoth further away from the prone Visionary.

Your manipulation of the void element is progressing admirably it noted. But this is not the place or time for this discussion. Nor should it involve quite so many CrazySugarFreakBoy coined phrases.

“You’re not touching Visionary!” Liu Xi declared with finality.

“But maybe you could be helping Yo?” Miiri suggested gently, as the two radioactive combatants went rolling past in a tussle of floor-shattering punches. The Shoggoth shrugged, and wrapped itself around the two.

“Ugh…” Jenni said, looking queasy. “That’s like the most disturbing jello wrestling I’ve ever seen.”

There was an unpleasant noise and a dripping Yo was deposited solidly on his/her behind. “Ew” Yo noted. “That is to be saying, thank you cute Shoggoth… Yo is feeling much more like Yo ought to be being.”

The radiation and Yurt contamination made for an interesting flavor the Shoggoth said by way of acceptance.

“And what of uncute Luminosis?”

He merely tasted like chicken.

Chiaki ignored the burning in her muscles and pressed her advantage. Her blade easily deflected Djinn’s attacks, and the hunter quickly learned to hold back the electricity, else the samurai’s blade fed on it and returned it eagerly. She still could not penetrate his force field, but her blade assured her that it could channel the impact of her blows through it, if not the cutting edge. So she simply set about bludgeoning her foe into submission.

It wasn’t until her opponent staggered backwards to gain some distance between them that she found the opening she was looking for. With a whiplike motion, she struck his sword hand and sent the blade skittering from the man’s grasp. He stumbled to recover, pulling twin guns from his belt. “Tag” the voice from her sword called. “I’m in.”

Even as Chiaki dodged low to avoid the first shots there was a blinding flash of green light and a lithe green woman closed the distance to the hunter, swinging punches at him oblivious to the bullets fired through her. Her blows didn’t faze him much, but they obviously angered him, and he pursued as she rolled away, bullets blasting glowing bits off her form. A shot tore through her leg, and she went down heavily on top of Djinn’s dropped sword. He snarled as he closed in on her writhing form, emptying both magazines into her. Chiaki moved to help her, but was brought up quickly by Yo’s hand on her shoulder.

“Is alright” he assured her. “Watch.”

Djinn finally ran out of ammunition when little more remained of the woman than a shattered, glowing mess… like a burned-through log that had collapsed in a fireplace. He spit on her remains and reached to retrieve his blade.

“Sucker” she said, winking from a suddenly unmarred face. With one hand on his sword, she pulled the electricity from it and channeled it directly into the hunter’s form, relentlessly. He staggered backwards, smoke rising from his gun belt before it burst into flames and fell away from him. Finally, there was a blinding flash and the shimmering aura of his force field popped like a soap bubble. The green woman rose up into the air before him and regarded his wobbling form critically for a moment, then kicked him in the face.

“Graaah!” he growled, clutching his nose. “What the hell are you?” he demanded, his encyclopedic knowledge of the supernatural failing him for the first time.

“Me? I’m one of the heroes” she informed him, kicking at him again.

“Heroes!” he snorted, disgusted. “If you’re the heroes, why am I the only one with the balls to do something about this place. What kind of heroes tolerate the inhuman monsters in our midst every day? What kind of heroes allow soulless abominations to mix with people … sleep with them, even. These aren’t humans I’m fighting… They’re merely things!”

The woman’s face grew very grim. “You look so smug and self-righteous when you say that. Could you say that you’re doing all of this because it’s your… patriotic duty?”

“Among other things” he sneered.

“Thanks… that’s just what I wanted to hear tonight” she said, before slamming an electrified fist into his face.

“She seems to have things well in hand” Chiaki noted with approval, sheathing her sword. “How about you?”

“Is a few more conflicts ongoing…” Yo admitted over the yelling of Liu Xi in the background. “But it is good to have so many of Visi’s needed coming together to help him.”

“And this is for having OPS try to spike me when I first visited your computer! And this is for convincing me to let you get into my cheerleading sweater in the backseat of your father’s car!” Hallie growled loud enough to be heard across the dance floor as she continued her pummeling of Djinn, who now seemed to be clad in the spandex costume of a famous government agent.

“You know that woman?” Chiaki asked Yo with mild surprise.

“Our Legion’s computer system.”

“Your computer seems to have a great deal of… issues.”

“Yes” Yo agreed happily. “…Is why we love her.”

“Lay hui say la!” Liu Xi answered the Shoggoth’s latest proposal.

“You know, she doesn’t necessarily negotiate for all of us…” Trudi suggested.

Very well… the Shoggoth relented, finally reaching a compromise. This pocket dimension grows more unstable, and the ample amount of timed explosives set to detonate shortly will not help things. Liu Xi will move Visionary and those with him, while I remove the bystanders to safety.

“About time…” Jenni noted. “Wait…” she said, looking the dripping mass of the goo up and down. “How will you move them?”

The Shoggoth stretched forth to engulf the unconscious clubgoers and shift them through reality.

“Um… We should probably stay by Visionary’s side… he named us his personal nurses…” Trudi announced.

“No he didn’t” the sorting hat rebutted.

The Wooster twins had just enough time to glare at it. “You’re an ugly little accessory” Jenni complained before the Shoggoth covered them and they faded out of sight.

“Hallie!” Yo called. “Please to be done playing with uncute villain and evacuating with us!”

The AI looked up from where she stood, fist raised, holding onto the front of the barely conscious hunter’s trademark suit. “Are we taking him with us?” she called.

“What did he do?” Liu Xi asked.

“Shoot Visionary in the head” Urthula supplied darkly.

The girl nodded. “Then no” she answered coldly, and the room twisted taking everyone else with her.

Desmond Djinn collapsed to the floor, blood trailing down his lip. He’d need to be better prepared next time, he noted. The Chinese girl and the Shoggoth. They breached the barricades he set up with ease. Obviously, more study was called for. He thumbed the retrieval codes on his watch, but the dimensional shift didn’t activate. Upon inspection, his watch had been well and truly fried by the green bitch. In fact, the arms had frozen in position… ten minutes until detonation. He started doing the math in his head.

“Yeah” he noted dryly as the first of the firebombs detonated. “…That seems about right.”

Visionary wheezed pathetically. His ribs had long since all broken, and yet his reflection seemed quite content to continue kicking him until they were reduced to powder.

“Why won’t you just let go already?” his abuser growled. “I mean, what do you possibly have to hold on to? Our friends? You know they’re better off without us. Our lovers? Oh… wait… that’s right… None will have us. Our life is an embarrassment to ourselves and all those around us. Why can’t you just have the good sense to step aside for something better?”

But that wasn’t the harassment he was listening to at the moment. Instead, he focused on another browbeating…

“Wake up, dammit!” a familiar voice sounded out, barely at the edge of his hearing. “You can’t leave us out here doing all the work!”

“Whas that?” Visionary mumbled, blinking.

His other self shook his head. “The pixilated one who thinks she’s too good for us.” he responded. “She’s trying to get us back. Don’t worry… I’ll answer her soon enough.”

“Kerry is missing, dammit!” Hallie’s voice growled. “You’re needed, so get up already!”

“Kerry?” Visionary asked, remembering something about the girl. A promise he once made…

“She hates us. She’s made it abundantly clear by now. And even if she did care a little bit, that would just make it all the better…. Just think how she’ll be sorry for how she treated us when you’re gone.”

“I promised her…” Visionary remembered.

“She promised us something different every day. Lied through her teeth to us. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Visionary started laughing. It was high, and laced with a bit of hysteria at first, but it was an honest to goodness laugh. “You’re impotent!” he noted between tears.

“I… that’s… Don’t go putting that on me!” his reflection protested. “It was late, and we’d had a lot to drink at the hotel bar… plus we were on that ear medication at the time..!”

This just made Visionary laugh harder. “No…” he gasped, “I mean, you can’t do a damn thing, and you know it. You can’t manifest unless I get out of the way. That’s how it works. Trust me… I’ve had some experience with your types.”

“What the hell are you…”

“Nyarlurkhotep was a moron” Visionary noted, dragging himself to his feet. He had no broken bones to worry about, and he knew it. “He thought he saw enough repressed anger, loneliness and humiliation in me to make me an easy mark. How much convincing would somebody as pathetic as me need to just give up and let him take over instead? That was it, wasn’t it?”

The other Visionary just glared back angrily.

“Boy, did he bet on the wrong horse. What he didn’t take into account, is that I’ve got practice. He should have found someone who didn’t have a Lisa or a Kerry in his life… Someone who might have actually been unable to separate the words people said from their feelings. You don’t have the foggiest idea how Kerry feels about us. You can’t. It’s not in you to empathize. And Nyarlurkhotep was too stupid to look at the rest of me as anything of consequence.” Visionary shoved his way past the reflection and headed off beyond it. “So shut up and stay the hell out of my way… because I’ve got things to do.”

“We can still kill you, you know…” the reflection said ominously.

“Then you may as well get on with it…” Visionary growled in response, “’cause I’m not letting you out and I’m done listening to you.”

Michael Wooster was just coming down the walk from his mother’s place when his two goo-encrusted siblings pulled themselves out of the back seat of a cab, leaving strings of viscous Shoggoth trailing behind them.

“What…” he began, before Trudi whipped her head around to confront him, splattering the front of his coat.

“Don’t even… Just… don’t” she warned, turning back and making her way up the steps.

“I hate it when he gets all smug like that…” Jenni noted darkly to her sister.

Michael blinked in confusion and watched them disappear into the front door before he turned to go, instead finding the cabbie blocking his path.

“They say you pay to have back seat upholstery de-gooed” he said matter-of-factly. “Three hundred dollar. Plus tip.”

Michael sighed and reached for his check book. Sure, he doubted there was a cab in Parodiopolis that had ever been truly de-gooed in it’s operating lifetime… Still, he somehow sensed that, should he ever find out the truth behind tonight, that knowledge would be well worth the expense...

“Lisa thought it would be for the best if we were not to be telling Visi about all the bad things with cute Kerry…” Yo was saying.

“But it’s not the way…” Hallie argued. “It’s not a heart attack we need to worry about… We need him to come back… and he’ll always come back for those he loves. I know it.”

“He will come back” Miiri agreed.

“So you tell him he is to be having miles to go…”Yo surmised.

“Ugh… Do you really think he’s stupid enough to fall for that…?” Visionary groaned, sitting up and putting his head in his hands. He paused a moment and felt around. “Am I wearing a spectacularly ugly hat?” he asked.

“Yes” the sorting hat answered out of habit. “Awww… now that’s an unpleasant way to face the truth about yourself…”

“VISI!” (or some variation) a variety of voices exclaimed, from Yo to Urthula to Liu Xi to Miiri and Hallie, and Visionary immediately found himself buried under a great many extremely pleasant soft embraces.

Visionary gave up trying to sort out just who was who and closed his eyes and smiled. “Man, was that Nyarlurkhotep a moron…” he repeated to himself. And then hoped it wasn’t Yo that was kissing him.

“Now…” he finally managed after he was thoroughly welcomed back to the land of the living, “…what’s this about Kerry?”

to be continued…

Post By Visionary presents an extra long chapter... or a slightly long chapter compared to the average Untold Tales. Sun Sep 25, 2005 at 07:35:47 pm EDT	Subject Heart of Darkness Chapter 11: Dead Man's Party

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