Re: The Savage Brawl [Round 4: Small 50s Town]
01-13-2011, 02:12 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.
The world had exploded.
Okay, the world had felt like it exploded, and when half of you had been trapped inside the blast created by a gluon feedback loop from malfunctioning ultra-tech, the difference between what it seemed like and the reality of the situation was pretty negligible. The world had exploded and then it was set on fire. And then it exploded again in a coruscating blast of lightning and metal spears ripping their way through the earth. And THEN IT HAD BEEN SET ON FIRE AGAIN.
Ekelhaft had been smeared across half the arena, teeth and eyes and slime burned and crushed and dispersed. It had flailed and wiggled and bumped into things, completely failing to reform in any significant way and gradually boiling away as the sorcerer's flames had ravaged the landscape. It had been a bad time for Ekelhaft.
Then the world faded; spread as thin as it was, the old god hadn't been in much of a position to appreciate what that meant. Then the new world formed around it, and whoever that monotone voice that had replaced the Cultivator's belonged to had seen fit to gather the shattered ooze into one place. From dizzying confusion and sensory input from a million indecipherable sources came clarity.
And fury.
This had been quite enough. That uppity steel man had more than outlived his amusingness, and his fragile little mind harbored too many schemes and too much self-importance to leave it intact any longer. Ekelhaft would destroy the self-styled tyrant utterly and without delay.
Which might prove problematic, actually. Now that it had formed a goal and stopped focusing solely inwards, the green horror realized it did not know where Hoss was. Or for that matter, where it was itself. Those few eyes that had survived the repeated holocausts in the abandoned park were soon supplemented by new ones formed in the noisome depths of Ekelhaft's remaining bulk, and began scanning their surroundings. It was dark and cramped and oddly soft, but there was a band of light mere inches away.
---
Robert was six years old, which was, in his father's estimation, far too old to still be afraid of the dark or monsters under the bed or aliens from Mars. There were too many real things to be afraid of, like communist spies and black people, to cling to childish bugaboos like that. It was time for Robert to grow up and act like a man, and for God's sake if his mother didn't stop encouraging stupid fantasies and mollycoddling the boy, he would end up like Johnson down the block and everyone knew what color carnation HE wore.
To Robert's credit, it had been months since he'd really been afraid of monsters around his room, and a little longer than that since he'd... you know... wet anything. He was growing up, and he was proud of it! But for some reason, this morning as the sun rose and cast long, eerie shadows across the floor and bed, he was filled with dread. The longer he lay there, the more it seemed that things were moving in the corners of his vision. He'd even swear he could hear something bubbling beneath his bed. For what felt like several hours, he stayed perfectly motionless, trying to convince himself it was all in his head or still dreaming, but when he thought he saw the dresser start inching closer, he screamed.
"MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMYYYYYYY!"
The shout pierced the air and probably woke a few neighbors; if it hadn't the sounds of their dogs barking in response certainly did. There was a thump from a few rooms down and a few muffled words, then the sounds of footsteps banging down the hall. A woman in a dressing gown and hastily-donned robe opened the door, panicked, to see what her son was screaming about.
"Honey, what is it?"
A tiny hand peeked out from under Robert's comforter and pointed shakily at the dresser, eyes wide and unblinking with terror. The woman looked over at the unmoving piece of furniture; there was nothing apparently threatening about it, but if she squinted she could see how the shadows of tree branches could vaguely approximate a face. She smiled gently and began walking towards the bed.
"Now, sweetheart, your father's told you, there's no such thing as–"
Without warning, a green tendril tipped with wickedly hooked fangs shot out from under the bed and slashed cruelly across the mother's stomach; gown and robe tore like paper, as did skin and muscle. The woman and her son's screams rose as one as her entrails were flung carelessly aside, blood spattering randomly across the walls of the boy's room. She collapsed, perhaps from pain and shock, or perhaps because three more such tendrils emerged from under the bed and began flaying her legs.
Teeth and pseudopodia tore the hapless woman apart in moments, adding dismemberment and decapitation to her disembowelment. Her screams died in moments, while her son's shrieks and weeping grew ever louder; soon, a man burst into the room, golf club in hand and glasses askew, obviously drawn by the commotion. Robert's bed launched upwards ash he entered, propelled by the rising column of slime. Dozens of glaring eyes stared back at the man; surprisingly, he stood his ground and gave the club a good swing, scything through the monster's gelatinous body and knocking an eyeball or two against the wall.
Sadly, it was both the first and last hit he'd manage; the ooze swept his feet out from under him in retaliation and descended on his prone form. He didn't even manage a yell as the monster enveloped him, slime filling his nose and mouth; more teeth swooped through the fetid mass of green, tearing the trapped father to ribbons. After his thrashing stopped, the monster turned its attention to the last living thing in the room: Robert.
The boy had been thrown against the ceiling then crashed down against the dresser, snapping a leg with the momentum and then being pinned beneath the flipped bed. At this point, he was too shocked even to snivel, and simply gawped, face spattered with his mother's blood, at the approaching horror. The bed was unceremoniously tossed aside again and a single pseudopod wrapped around Robert's leg; he was whipped upwards and slammed down again, head dashed on the corner of the dresser. Despite there having been no conceivable way the poor boy could have survived having his neck broken and skull shattered like that, the little body was slammed into the wall several more times before being tossed across the room.
The monster wasted no more time on the room now that it was devoid of other life, oozing quickly out into the hall in search of other victims.
---
The neighborhood, which had already begun to slowly stir in the rays of dawn, had been rather rudely roused by all the screams; while they had been brief, they had been loud, and might actually have been less foreboding if they had gone on longer. A number of people were already moving towards the house, and it would be hard to believe not even one person had already called the police.
As Ekelhaft caught sight of the approaching humans through a window, it began to reconsider its objective to destroy the cyborg and only the cyborg. Surely there was time for a little fun along the way.
---
Whatever had gathered up the constituent parts of Ekelhaft and smashed them back together for this round had seen fit to leave Self out of it, for which the little ball of fury was the closest approximation of grateful it could manage. It had barely managed to survive the explosions and fire, having so little mass to lose, and was only still alive because it had managed to burrow its way into the lee of some soil raised by the lich's maze spell.
In the new round, it had been dropped unceremoniously on the top of what appeared to be a steeple. For some time, the little droplet of slime simply cast its monocular gaze around from this high vantage point, content to wait until a target presented itself. This target wasn't long in coming, as a dark shape it recognized as the lich exited the very building it was perched on top of, looked around for a moment, and headed towards the fenced-off area that appeared to be a cemetery.
Self began oozing stealthily down the spire and across the roof; from its last encounter with the damned mage, it knew a head-on attack with no preparation would be fruitless and suicidal, so it resolved to track him for the time being. It would gather information and find a weak point or good time to surprise, and hopefully sap his power and sanity along the way.
The world had exploded.
Okay, the world had felt like it exploded, and when half of you had been trapped inside the blast created by a gluon feedback loop from malfunctioning ultra-tech, the difference between what it seemed like and the reality of the situation was pretty negligible. The world had exploded and then it was set on fire. And then it exploded again in a coruscating blast of lightning and metal spears ripping their way through the earth. And THEN IT HAD BEEN SET ON FIRE AGAIN.
Ekelhaft had been smeared across half the arena, teeth and eyes and slime burned and crushed and dispersed. It had flailed and wiggled and bumped into things, completely failing to reform in any significant way and gradually boiling away as the sorcerer's flames had ravaged the landscape. It had been a bad time for Ekelhaft.
Then the world faded; spread as thin as it was, the old god hadn't been in much of a position to appreciate what that meant. Then the new world formed around it, and whoever that monotone voice that had replaced the Cultivator's belonged to had seen fit to gather the shattered ooze into one place. From dizzying confusion and sensory input from a million indecipherable sources came clarity.
And fury.
This had been quite enough. That uppity steel man had more than outlived his amusingness, and his fragile little mind harbored too many schemes and too much self-importance to leave it intact any longer. Ekelhaft would destroy the self-styled tyrant utterly and without delay.
Which might prove problematic, actually. Now that it had formed a goal and stopped focusing solely inwards, the green horror realized it did not know where Hoss was. Or for that matter, where it was itself. Those few eyes that had survived the repeated holocausts in the abandoned park were soon supplemented by new ones formed in the noisome depths of Ekelhaft's remaining bulk, and began scanning their surroundings. It was dark and cramped and oddly soft, but there was a band of light mere inches away.
---
Robert was six years old, which was, in his father's estimation, far too old to still be afraid of the dark or monsters under the bed or aliens from Mars. There were too many real things to be afraid of, like communist spies and black people, to cling to childish bugaboos like that. It was time for Robert to grow up and act like a man, and for God's sake if his mother didn't stop encouraging stupid fantasies and mollycoddling the boy, he would end up like Johnson down the block and everyone knew what color carnation HE wore.
To Robert's credit, it had been months since he'd really been afraid of monsters around his room, and a little longer than that since he'd... you know... wet anything. He was growing up, and he was proud of it! But for some reason, this morning as the sun rose and cast long, eerie shadows across the floor and bed, he was filled with dread. The longer he lay there, the more it seemed that things were moving in the corners of his vision. He'd even swear he could hear something bubbling beneath his bed. For what felt like several hours, he stayed perfectly motionless, trying to convince himself it was all in his head or still dreaming, but when he thought he saw the dresser start inching closer, he screamed.
"MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMYYYYYYY!"
The shout pierced the air and probably woke a few neighbors; if it hadn't the sounds of their dogs barking in response certainly did. There was a thump from a few rooms down and a few muffled words, then the sounds of footsteps banging down the hall. A woman in a dressing gown and hastily-donned robe opened the door, panicked, to see what her son was screaming about.
"Honey, what is it?"
A tiny hand peeked out from under Robert's comforter and pointed shakily at the dresser, eyes wide and unblinking with terror. The woman looked over at the unmoving piece of furniture; there was nothing apparently threatening about it, but if she squinted she could see how the shadows of tree branches could vaguely approximate a face. She smiled gently and began walking towards the bed.
"Now, sweetheart, your father's told you, there's no such thing as–"
Without warning, a green tendril tipped with wickedly hooked fangs shot out from under the bed and slashed cruelly across the mother's stomach; gown and robe tore like paper, as did skin and muscle. The woman and her son's screams rose as one as her entrails were flung carelessly aside, blood spattering randomly across the walls of the boy's room. She collapsed, perhaps from pain and shock, or perhaps because three more such tendrils emerged from under the bed and began flaying her legs.
Teeth and pseudopodia tore the hapless woman apart in moments, adding dismemberment and decapitation to her disembowelment. Her screams died in moments, while her son's shrieks and weeping grew ever louder; soon, a man burst into the room, golf club in hand and glasses askew, obviously drawn by the commotion. Robert's bed launched upwards ash he entered, propelled by the rising column of slime. Dozens of glaring eyes stared back at the man; surprisingly, he stood his ground and gave the club a good swing, scything through the monster's gelatinous body and knocking an eyeball or two against the wall.
Sadly, it was both the first and last hit he'd manage; the ooze swept his feet out from under him in retaliation and descended on his prone form. He didn't even manage a yell as the monster enveloped him, slime filling his nose and mouth; more teeth swooped through the fetid mass of green, tearing the trapped father to ribbons. After his thrashing stopped, the monster turned its attention to the last living thing in the room: Robert.
The boy had been thrown against the ceiling then crashed down against the dresser, snapping a leg with the momentum and then being pinned beneath the flipped bed. At this point, he was too shocked even to snivel, and simply gawped, face spattered with his mother's blood, at the approaching horror. The bed was unceremoniously tossed aside again and a single pseudopod wrapped around Robert's leg; he was whipped upwards and slammed down again, head dashed on the corner of the dresser. Despite there having been no conceivable way the poor boy could have survived having his neck broken and skull shattered like that, the little body was slammed into the wall several more times before being tossed across the room.
The monster wasted no more time on the room now that it was devoid of other life, oozing quickly out into the hall in search of other victims.
---
The neighborhood, which had already begun to slowly stir in the rays of dawn, had been rather rudely roused by all the screams; while they had been brief, they had been loud, and might actually have been less foreboding if they had gone on longer. A number of people were already moving towards the house, and it would be hard to believe not even one person had already called the police.
As Ekelhaft caught sight of the approaching humans through a window, it began to reconsider its objective to destroy the cyborg and only the cyborg. Surely there was time for a little fun along the way.
---
Whatever had gathered up the constituent parts of Ekelhaft and smashed them back together for this round had seen fit to leave Self out of it, for which the little ball of fury was the closest approximation of grateful it could manage. It had barely managed to survive the explosions and fire, having so little mass to lose, and was only still alive because it had managed to burrow its way into the lee of some soil raised by the lich's maze spell.
In the new round, it had been dropped unceremoniously on the top of what appeared to be a steeple. For some time, the little droplet of slime simply cast its monocular gaze around from this high vantage point, content to wait until a target presented itself. This target wasn't long in coming, as a dark shape it recognized as the lich exited the very building it was perched on top of, looked around for a moment, and headed towards the fenced-off area that appeared to be a cemetery.
Self began oozing stealthily down the spire and across the roof; from its last encounter with the damned mage, it knew a head-on attack with no preparation would be fruitless and suicidal, so it resolved to track him for the time being. It would gather information and find a weak point or good time to surprise, and hopefully sap his power and sanity along the way.