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Questionable Questing

Gusfes, sinereal replied to a thread you are watching at Questionable Questing

[NSFW] - Sine's Dumping Ground for Decommissioned Projects

 

Predatory

aka

Venom 53

[hr][/hr]

"Why are we doing this?"

"Cause reasons."

"Oh. 'Cause reasons.' Well, that clears everything up."

"Glad you agree."

"Tell me you ass," Missy growled quietly as they popped another ceiling tile up and planted yet another camera and microphone.

"Because I want Skitter on our side, but there needs to be a Skitter for that to happen."

Missy was silent for a while at they worked. Eventually, she asked, "She's going to trigger here, isn't she?"

"Yup."

"So you're telling me that high school bullying creates the strongest Master in the world? That's fucking retarded."

Her shoulders shrugged outside of her control. "Skitter was always going to be strong, no matter what. Because her shard is Queen Administrator. Basically, the shard that, when it says jump, other shards don't ask how high. They jump. As high as they can. As far as they can. As fast as they can. And they keep jumping until told otherwise. Remember, powers are assigned by the shard from a limited set of what it's actually capable of. Theoretically, she could come out a super Trump who controls other shards—the kind that people would claim was playing 4D chess with every other shard and they'd call her God Empress. Or a super Stranger, that somehow causes other people to cease to exist because the universe no longer recognizes them as existing, because QA bullied the universe into it. Usually that shard isn't even deployed, because it's too important, or so I've heard. Don't remember if that's canon or fanon. The circumstances only matter in so far as determining what sort of power to dole out. But as far as I understand it, because she doesn't get deployed often, QA is a thirsty bitch."

Missy nodded, her hands in the ceiling moving to connect up another mic feed while tentacles ran more CAT-5 cable, connected to a PoE injector. The entire system was set to run off of the school's own power and internet without actually being visible to said network.

"Still kind of creepy to be wiring up a girls' bathroom."

Miles sighed using her mouth. "They like to harass her in bathrooms too. I don't know which ones, so it's better to just bug them all. It's not like I'm interested in upskirt or candid shots of teen girls."

Missy took a moment to stick her head out of the ceiling and send her best deadpan look at the cracked bathroom mirror.

"Save for one, and I don't really need cameras if I want to look at her, now do I?" He asked, and the suit squeezed her in all the right places to get her motor running.

"Jerk."

Once they were finished and all the testing was complete, they left the site. "So, what now?"

"We need to make a run down to Texas before the next Endbringer shows up."

"Why?"

"I'd rather not say. If I'm right, things will get better. If I'm wrong, well, it won't matter."

Missy sighed, but nodded her agreement. "Fine. Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow."

[hr][/hr]

"Everything is so much… Cleaner. More peaceful. The cops look like they actually give a fuck and aren't overworked."

"You've lived in an east coast shit hole, sorry, I mean city all your life. Of course it's more peaceful and cleaner. Though just to be fair, it's not limited to the coasts. It describes pretty much every city regardless of location. Been that way for years. As for the cops, yeah—that's population disparity. More cops per capita out this far."

Looking around the sleepy east Texas town they had stopped in to fill up (with cash and in disguise, of course) and get lunch, Missy asked, "Why is that?"

"Politics and voter demographics."

The blonde, redhead Mary Jane Watson clone at the moment, watched the pump tick away. "This I'd love to hear."

"The people in the cities voted in politicians with more and more 'progressive' politics. The cities started falling apart. High crime, high unemployment, filth everywhere you look, and high taxes that do nothing to fix the underlying issues. All brought in by the politicians they elected. I'm not saying everywhere outside the cities is perfect, either—far from it. People are people regardless of where you go. But they tend to be better by miles."

Humming, the girl asked, "And that's how it was in your world?"

"My America, at least. I'll admit, I didn't exactly pay attention to politics outside of the States. And American politics? They became an absolute shitshow. Imagine '1984' and 'Brave New World' used as guidelines for running a country over the last, oh, thirty or forty years. With the prequel to 'The Turner Diaries' as the consequence over the last eight or so."

Seeing the tank reach the fill line, Missy shut off the pump and hung it up. "Only heard of one of those, but it sounds bad."

"It was," Miles admitted as they walked inside to wash their hands and grab a bite to eat. "Can we not talk about it? I'm sick and fucking tired of it and now that I'm out, I want nothing to do with that particular version of Earth. I wouldn't go back if you paid me to. Yeah, it sucks that my family likely thinks I'm dead, but they'll get over it with time and so will I."

"Mm. What do we want?" Missy murmured aloud, while she looked over the menu selection in the attached restaurant. That's the first time he's really spoken about who he left behind. Maybe I should try to get him to open up more on it?

"I suggest the ribs," the older lady behind the counter offered.

"The barbecued chicken. It's your make or break item. Burger's a good baseline for whether the cook even cares, but the chicken will tell you if anything else on the menu is worth a shit. Because it's easy to cook, but even easier to fuck up if you don't know what you're doing."

"Let me get the barbecued chicken with a side of…"

"Potato salad. I'ma pop your northern cherry on southern down home cooking."

"Potato salad," Missy relayed, fighting valiantly to keep a straight face.

"Sweet tea to drink."

The girl repeated the request, though internally she was skeptical. Once she had finished, she went and found a seat. "It's not like we don't have potato salad back home."

"Please. Most of those idiots think 'sweet tea' means 'pour a cup of fucking sugar into a glass of cold tea.' I wouldn't trust them not to fuck up minute rice."

Missy very deliberately did not mention that that's exactly what she thought he had meant.

Ten minutes later, they were halfway though their food. "Okay, I was skeptical, but this is great."

"Meh. Chicken is decent but they didn't smoke it. Congratulations, you didn't fuck it up, but you still half-assed it. Potato salad is weak. Not seasoned right. We're getting Mexican later. Hope you've got a high tolerance for heat."

"Uh, no? I'd like to not melt my face off."

"Don't be a pussy. It'll grow back. Now the case of redass you're going to have after, that won't be a good time. Fun fact, if it doesn't burn just as bad coming out as it did going in, it wasn't cooked right."

"My poor ass," Missy whined quietly in dread. Yeah, she had to use the bathroom way less these days, but there were some things she still had to pass. And if Miles was right, that was going to hurt.

Maybe he's just fucking with me?

[hr][/hr]

"Okay, why are we watching this guy's home?"

"Because I'm going to kill him."

Missy blinked. "No we're not."

Miles nodded her head. "No. You're not. I am. This one's on my conscience alone. But it needs to happen."

"Why? Give me one good reason."

"I can only give you a reason after I've done the deed. Because Thinker bullshit. I will tell you, but you have to trust me."

Missy chewed her lip as they watched the penthouse from the next building over. Her mind ran a mile a minute over possibilities and she had gotten nowhere near a decision when a rectangular hole in space opened and a normal looking man stepped out of the doorway.

"Huh. That's… Weird. That's not what the portal they flushed me through looked like. I thought these assholes only had one portal cape."

"Who is that?"

"Can't say yet. Now shush."

They watched and waited as the man went through his home, taking care of chores with obvious use of powers, cooking and eating supper, sitting down to watch some television, taking a shower, before finally he went to bed. Then, they waited some more.

It was three thirty when their enhanced senses finally detected that he was truly asleep—in a deep sleep, not just dozing. "Sorry, Missy. Sleep time."

"Wa—" Missy's world went dark and for a moment, her body went limp.

Then, Missy's body stood and stretched shaking itself out and limbering up. How do I want to do this?

Miles considered for a moment, before nodding to himself. The layer of himself over Missy's body shifted, taking on a taller, thinner female form. Her hair shifted from white to pitch black. Any fingerprints she may have had smoothed out to nothing. Her clothes writhed for a moment before settling down into something that wouldn't look out of place on a Japanese schoolgirl—in a series depicting a time pre-1980, with the long navy skirt down to mid-calf, navy jacket, and white top. The most disturbing change was her face.

There was no face.

Everything from the brow down to the chin was smooth. No eyes. No nose. No mouth. Not even an outline of where they should be. Then, just to lay it on thick, Miles created a mask made of bone over the lack of face. Round. White. With holes for eyes and a mouth and markings above and below the eyes, very much reminiscent of a certain No Face from a Miyazaki movie.

From 'Ms. Face' to 'Ms. Noh Face.' Hah.

A flex of biomass, a little shaping, and a knife dropped into 'her' hand, before disappearing into a pocket dimension, just in case. Now, how would a super fucking scary J-Horror brought to life go about killing someone? Ah! Got it.

Noh Face stepped off the roof, skirt and hair fluttering wildly as she fell down, down, down, to the ground. She landed with a solid thump that should have sent her skeleton shooting out of her flesh, if she weren't actually a tentacle monster wrapped around the girl she was buried inside so deeply that no one could separate them. With no one on the street to witness her feat or say anything, she walked calmly to the front door of the apartment building. Door's alarmed and the cameras will be watching me now.

Her shadow, actually a millimeter thick layer of Miles, raced out ahead of her to the door, where it spread across the metal surface but left the glass untouched. Tiny, tiny tendrils burrowed their way through the metal, finding the magnetic lock and alarm. Both were cut from the door and held in place, while the door itself swung open just as she got close. The door pulled closed behind her and the pieces she had cut were fixed roughly back into position, held so they wouldn't fall off and sound the alarm—even if the security company likely watching the place had probably already called the cops.

Noh Face took an unhurried pace to the elevator, pausing only momentarily before the lobby camera. Slowly, she tilted her head up and stared directly at the camera. The bone of her mask shifted from a flat expression to a smile, complete with upturned eye holes, before she turned her head away and walked into the elevator and hit the button for the basement. The elevator closed and, after making sure there were no cameras, she leaped up to the ceiling and pried open the fire fighter's roof access panel, using tendrils to unlock it.

Once on top of the elevator, tentacles extended out to the walls and flung her upwards, more flowing up and jerking her towards the top of the building. Tapping into Missy's brain, space twisted and she pulled herself through the twist, closed it, and twisted space again—repeating this as she went. Within a few seconds, she had reached the penthouse level. For theatrics, just in case there was a camera watching, she filled the part of the elevator shaft behind her with a layer of darker than black symbiote. Then, her shadow shot under the elevator doors, over the top, and in the crack between them before spreading across the doors and surrounding walls. Then, she made with the glowing eyeballs.

Huh. Cameras in all the halls? Miles wondered as he spotted the camera pointed at the elevator doors.

Slowly, Noh Face's shadow forced the door open and she stepped out, her shadow full of glowing eyes retreating from the elevator, walls, and elevator doors to pool around her feet in a writhing mass of black and glowing red eyes. Pausing under the camera again and sneaking a tendril camouflaged to match the floor and then the wall up to it, she turned her head up and 'smiled' for it. This time, the mask's eye holes opened wide, and blackness specked with countless, tiny eyes filled the holes of her eyes and mouth.

Then, the tendril at the camera pulled out the cable powering it.

With no more need of theatrics for the moment, the tendrils and symbiote retreated back into her form and Noh Face strode quickly to the door she believed to belong to the world's most versatile parahuman. A tendril poked under the door and an eyeball spawned on the end, looking around. Seeing nothing out of place, she used tendrils to open the lock on the door and very quietly slipped inside. Making her way to the bedroom, she slipped another tendril under the door and found her target there, still snoring away on the bed.

Taking a calming breath, she tentacled the door again and let herself in.

Calm down. No Cuntessa. No Simurgh. No Coil. We're still alive, so they don't see us. …Or this is a trap. Steady.

Tiptoeing over to the bed, she eyed the sleeping form of Eidolon. David something or other—Miles didn't care to know. What he did care to know was that this man was tied to the Endbringers and killing him stood a one in three chance of either shutting the Endbringers down entirely, setting them free and letting them rampage wantonly, or doing absolutely nothing. And on that one in three chance that the Endbringers would stop being a potential vector for Miles dying or getting brain fucked by something better at fucking brains than he was, Eidolon had to die.

Tendrils spread out over the man's head, spreading thin—so thin they looked like a gossamer lattice of spider web, before going even smaller. The ends brushed Eidolon's face, feeling like exactly nothing as they were too tiny for nerves to perceive. Then, they swiftly wormed their way down and in, seeking out the juicy prize in the middle. Penetrating the man's skull, the tendrils spread over and through his brain.

Miles paused, frowning as part of his power picked up something… different. It wasn't exactly new though. Upon noticing it in Eidolon, he realized he could sense it in Missy's brain as well. A tiny, infinitesimally small pinhole connection to what felt vaguely similar to the pocket dimension where he kept his excess mass and other things he wanted to store temporarily.

Oh my shit, that's a shard connection, he realized. I wonder… Can I? Should I? … Fuck it, let's find out. Om, nom, NOM!

Reaching into the connection he felt there, he flipped the switch for his own pocket dimension and flooded the connection with biomass. At the same time, the tendrils in Eidolon's brain rapidly expanded, eating their way through his juicy meat—spreading out and down, but leaving the structures for the Corona and Gemma for last.

Eidolon's body rapidly shrank, his covers falling limply over where his form had been, as Noh Face pulled her hand back, carrying with her just a head. And now that she had an active connection established to her own biomass and supported by her own power, she consumed even that. Turning away from the bed, she left the room. Feeling a bit theatrical, she summoned up her shadow full of eyes again and flooded the hall outside, then reconnected the camera feed.

Then, she strode out calm as can be and walked down the hall to the elevator, her shadow retreating with her—finally disappearing entirely as she closed herself in the empty elevator shaft. Heading up, she poked a tendril through the bottom of the elevator machine room on the building's roof, and out the door. Looking around, she frowned as she spotted a man flying above the roof, wearing a white and gold outfit with a helmet on his head. No idea who the fuck that is, Miles sighed, wishing he had researched the Houston capes more.

Sneaking the tendril over the side of the building, she scoped out the other entrances, where she found police and Protectorate waiting—lights on but no sirens. Additionally, a few other people that looked like both Protectorate and Wards.

Okay, how do I want to play this?

Thinking it through, Miles hummed quietly to himself. Haven't tried mass shifting yet… I mean, theoretically, I can move Missy's body into my pocket dimension with the rest of my mass, so long as something is left outside, just so I know where to come back to. Never saw Venom or one of the other Klyntar do it, but I'm not actually one of them, am I? I play by similar rules, but not all of them. Nothing says I can't and it feels possible.

Not sure how safe it is though. Ugh, fuck it. I think I might be able to regenerate Missy's body if I fuck this up. God I hope so.

Miles winced and left a good deal of mass in the elevator shaft, before squeezing Missy's physical body into his pocket dimension. Noh Face emerged inside a throbbing mass of tentacles and empty space, but beyond a complete lack of gravity and light other than what Miles' biomass was throwing off, nothing seemed different. The place even had atmosphere and a tolerable temperature, which he realized that he was supplying himself through his pocket dimension connection. Okay then. I've got myself a plan.

Pushing her body back out into real space, Noh Face twisted space between herself and the ground floor and pulled herself through, but left the twist open. Above, the tendril poked its way back outside and spied the hero once again. Going over her plan once more, Noh Face nodded. They want play heroes and villains? Fuck that. Let's go show them a monster.

Shadow spilled out of the elevator door, coating the inside of the lobby. Slowly, ever so slowly, the elevator doors crept open—revealing the bone white sliver of Noh Face's mask as she stood in the middle of the doors. Once they were open, she stepped out of the elevator and walked down the hall—glowing red eyes sprouting around her as she walked and closing behind her, keeping to a roughly two meter sphere around her person.

Shadow spilled out of the building and into the parking lot, lit by a confusing play of headlights and the flashing red and blue of police and PRT light bars. In the dark, in the shadows thrown by the glare of so many lights, no one paid any attention to those shadows getting just a little darker here and there as they spread further outwards—under and inside vehicles, under and between people.

Is that a Milkor? Ooh, nice! Mine! And grenades—mine too! Thank you, PRT, Miles mentally cackled as tendrils grabbed useful things and pulled them into his pocket dimension.

"Come out with your hands up!" someone called over a megaphone integrated into a police cruiser.

The door to the building opened and Noh Face stepped out, bringing her sea of eyes with her. Even from where she stood, the mass shudder the sight evoked drew a smile to her face (or would have, if she had a face)—though the mask over her face remained bland.

"Get on the ground with your hands behind your head and your legs spread, or you will be foamed!"

Noh Face tilted her head slowly to the side, emoting confusion, or consideration. A stream of foam rushed in her direction from behind one of the police cars parked nearby—one of the troopers losing his nerve and opening fire. Noh Face disappeared before the stream reached her. She reappeared an instant later, behind and to the side of the trooper that had fired, from a puddle of shadow. With a jerk, the trooper turned to face the threat he had just registered in his peripheral vision.

Sorry kid, nothing personal. Bahahaha!

Noh Face held up a hand, a single finger extended, and wagged her finger left to right in time with the slow shaking of her head. At the same time, a low, croaking groan escaped her throat and a high pitched clicking as though of a million bats filled the parking lot.

"FUCK!" the trooper screamed, spinning around fully and bringing his foam gun to bear, only to have it pulled from his hands like an adult taking a toy away from a child.

Noh Face 'tsked' again.

"Open fire!" someone screamed. And then, all hell broke loose as foam guns went off.

Noh Face turned the gun she had confiscated from the trooper on the man himself and held down the trigger while sweeping the gun over the trooper and the two police officers beside him. Then, she disappeared before the foam could reach her.

Because that's what happens when you fight with what are, essentially, water guns. Most bullets are supersonic—that's what the crack of sound is, the bullet breaking the sound barrier. A stream of water, or even denser chemical foam? Not nearly so fast. One more layer to the big fucking joke that was this world's response to parahuman threats. If the cops had any sense, they'd have opened fire with real guns the moment she cleared the doors. Not that it would have helped them, but she would've at least respected them for the attempt.

The parking lot brightened as it became a sea of red eyes, leering at everyone there. Then, Noh Face reappeared next to another group of police and troopers and repeated her spray-and-pray tactic, before swiping another foam gun when the one she held ran empty.

Several youngsters in costumes began fleeing away from the fray, but were met with much the same fate as the police and PRT as Noh Face stuck them in place—and, in fact, caught a bit of friendly fire from some of those same PRT troopers when they turned to try to follow her with their shots. Above the hotel, the man in the white costume and helmet started descending. Alright, time to fuck off—

And then, a second man in a white costume and helmet, with a different style and different accent colors, joined the fray. Flickering across the parking lot in bursts of speed, he suddenly appeared in Noh Face's face. Noh Face frowned as the world outside her human body slowed—a feeling of lag spreading between the human body and the biomass outside of it, a sphere of violet light separating Missy's body from the rest of the world, as seen from both sides.

What the actual fuck? Miles wondered, before what he was seeing and experiencing clicked. Time dilator. Nice. Not quite Homura-level bullshit though, so let's see what you've got.

Then, the white-costumed man with the frowning mask was in her face, swinging in with a straight punch to her face. Noh Face rooted herself to the ground and made her body go rigid. The fist impacted her mask and she allowed the connection between the bone and her faceless-face underneath to sever. The bone mask went flying, leaving her face exposed as it landed in the sea of shadow and eyes around their feet.

Mother fucker that hurt! Oh, your ass is grass, buddy—and I'm the fucking lawnmower. Actually broke Missy's fucking jaw, you dick.

The hero withdrew his fist and froze, his arm halfway back into a second punch. He shuddered slightly as Noh Face raised her finger again, wagging it as she moaned from deep in her throat. She slowly turned her head towards the fallen mask. The hero swiftly nodded. "Uh, yeah. Yeah! You uh, you go on ahead."

Her body followed her head as she turned and retrieved her mask. Returning to her place in front of the hero, she slipped the mask back over her face, biomass reconnecting it as it had been. The mouth hole of the mask pulled into a frown as her eyes and mouth filled with shadow, and then eyes, eliciting another shudder from the hero. Tilting her head down, she blatantly looked at her hand. Following the gaze, the hero watched as she slowly balled up her fist, before returning her gaze to his own.

"Ah, sorry about that," the man muttered. "No harm, no foul?" he tried.

Noh Face shook her head, drew back her fist, and swung for his face. To his credit, the hero's training was good and his power gave him enhanced strength and durability. He got his arms up into a boxer's block in time to stop the punch.

What he wasn't expecting was for the walking horror the symbiote was pretending to be to hit like a fucking truck. The light armor in his costume did very little to blunt the force of the punch and his power didn't quite match up. The hero flinched back as pain shot up his left arm, radiating out from the point where Noh Face's fist had impacted in a way that couldn't just be ignored—it was cracked at minimum, possibly worse.

The purple sphere dropped away and the hero retreated and her connection to the rest of her biomass returned to normal. That was when the first white-clad hero neared the end of his descent, drew back his fist, and punched at her from yards away. Knowing a ranged attack when she saw one, Noh Face waited for the last second, tendrils under her feet swiftly tearing up the concrete of the parking lot and reducing it to dust and chunks. Then, just as she felt the pressure differential, she disappeared—shadows and all.

The spot where she had stood exploded in a cloud of dust and a shower of rubble, filling the parking lot with dust as Noh Face made her retreat. Back through the biomass in the hall, into the elevator, through a twist in space, up to the top of the building and into the elevator machine room. So, I can pull Missy's body in with the rest of my mass and I can leave mass out… and I can shape mass into what I want. How about…

A darkly colored, gray and black speckled great horned owl flew out of the machine room's roof access door, let out by a shadow opening the door. Enhanced eyes peered down at the carnage below as the owl settled onto a nearby adjacent building. I'm definitely going to have to show Missy this shit when I wake her up. …After she calms down. She's going to be pissed.

Miles watched as the dust settled and the PRT, Protectorate, Dallas PD, County Sheriffs, and Texas State Police broke into search parties to sweep the area. The aerokinetic, or telekinetic, cape flew back up and surveyed the top of the building, before circling around to survey other, nearby buildings. Miles made his owl form hunker down as the hero approached, before giving a hoot and taking off as though spooked, circling away. The hero didn't give him so much as a second glance as he carried on about his search.

Winging his way back to their hotel, Miles swooped into the alley adjacent to the cheap hotel, made sure no one was watching, then brought Missy's body back out—after shifting her back into their Mary Jane Watson disguise. Strolling casually out of the alley, she let herself into their rented room, closed the door, and collapsed onto the bed. Heaving out a huge sigh, she chuckled quietly to herself. "Fuck me. Just fuck me sideways."

The night wasn't over yet, and she didn't want Missy awake for this next part, either. Closing her eyes, she focused on the biomass trailing out to another Earth, where it had been slowly covering, delving into, and exploring a massive construct of crystal and flesh miles long and skyscraper high. This is either going to work, or it's going to really suck and we'll both die.

Taking a steadying breath, Miles began converting everything he was touching into more symbiote, replicating its structure in every detail, at every scale he could reach—which was seemingly all of them. A shadow spread along and through the glowing living machine as Miles consumed it, slowly converting it—but picking up speed. At no point did it fight back, resist, or so much as offer protest. The only point of contention Miles felt was that once he had started, he felt like he couldn't stop and needed to finish.

And then, somewhere just shy of the halfway mark, he gained enough mass that biomass flooded over the rest and consumed it all… and Miles' mind exploded as it was flooded with information.

Missy's body thrashed on the bed, seizing and flailing as she foamed at the mouth, eyes wide open but unseeing as her body voided itself.

Her heart stopped.

["It's incomplete."]

["What do you mean, 'incomplete?'"]

[A sigh. "Without the symbiote's genetic memory giving it its own consciousness, it needs to imprint on someone else's consciousness by absorbing them."]

["So you're telling me that this fucking puddle of goop is going to eat the first person it touches?"]

["Yes, sir."]

["…Well, it beats dealing with Venom, Carnage, or any one of the dozen other abominations. Use the portal to find someone expendable to test this on. We can dispose of it if it's not cooperative and use Batch Two on a volunteer."]

["Yes sir."]

For a moment.

And then, it roared back to life—literally, as the redhead sat up, form shifting into their up-armored Venom-like form and letting out a roar that shook the windows.

Panting, Missy tried to slow her racing heart as she shrank down, armor retracting and once more leaving her just Mary Jane. She collapsed on the bed and stared up at the ceiling.

"Miles. What. The. Fuck." she panted.

"Ate something that… upset my stomach. Still processing, sorry."

"Upset stomach? You? What the fuck did you eat? A fucking Endbringer?" Missy demanded in a low hiss.

Miles' slightly manic giggle worried her. "Heh. About twenty of them!"

The redhead rolled her eyes. A pounding knock sounded at the door and she frowned. Rolling out of bed, she strolled over to the door and looked out the peephole. On the other side, she found a member of hotel staff. "I'll deal with it," Miles offered.

Before she could say anything one way or another, Missy's 'MJ outfit' rippled away, leaving her in a thin, lacy negligee of the sort Missy wished she owned and had the actual body to fill out. Her red hair mussed itself and her face fell into a cranky, sleepy look. Opening the door a crack with the upper lock on the door, she peered out sleepily with a yawn—allowing the man, closer to a boy really—get a good eye-full of her figure. "What is it? It's four in the fucking morning."

"Uh, the guest next door called and complained about a, a noise," the young man gulped. "Did you, ah, hear anything?"

Mary Jane shook her head. "No, sorry. Not until someone knocked on my door."

The man on the other side winced at the obvious dig. "Okay. Sorry to disturb you, miss."

"Uh huh. Good night," she grumbled, closing and locking the door, before stomping off to the bed, throwing herself in it, and burying herself under the covers. Then Missy felt her body return to her control.

"What happened with that guy?"

"Ate him. Eating his shard right now. That's why I'm distracted and it feels like someone tried to skull-fuck me with a sandpaper condom covered dildo the size of a semi-truck. Cops, PRT, Protectorate, and Wards showed up. Guess it was a slow night and they were bored. I gave them a ghost to chase and brought us back here, then ate the shard. It… stopped your heart. Gave you an aneurysm, too. I fixed both, so you're fine."

Missy's blood ran cold at the knowledge that she had technically died there for a minute, and if not for Miles, she would still be dead. Of course, I wouldn't have been in this mess in the first place if not for him.

"Who was he?" she finally asked.

"Eidolon."

Missy spluttered, her eyes flying open as her fists clenched her pillow. "You what?! What the fuck, Miles?!"

"Short answer? You know those rumors about canned powers?" He waited for Missy to nod her head. "Yeah, Eidolon got his powers from a can. There's a group out there, named Cauldron, who are basically cape Illuminati. They sell canned powers in exchange for favors or money. Powers they harvest from the dead space whale. Eidolon's shard was something like 'Need,' I think. The Fairy Queen called him the High Priest, but said he was wearing the wrong costume. His shard controlled the Endbringers. Maybe created them for this cycle, because there are seventeen blanks and the three active platforms Earth Bet knows and loves to hate. It wasn't conscious on his part, because his shard was dead—not just dead, but the AI that was supposed to be running it wasn't even initialized. Only the basic functions of power management were up and running, including creating and deploying Endbringers."

"But why would it make them at all?"

Miles sighed, using Missy's lips. "As part of the cycle, to cause conflict. Basically, an excuse to stir the pot and make sure no one gets comfortable. Connected as they were to Eidolon, they ran off his subconscious desires. Namely, his desire for a challenging opponent and his fears of being overshadowed by a rising star. Every Endbringer attack? They can all be tracked to a city where some new hero was doing a little too well and looked to eclipse Eidolon, who was slowly losing his own powers because his shard's battery is running low, what with having to build and fuel the Endbringers on top of his own powers. Because his shard's AI never initialized, it couldn't convert the planet it was on into energy from matter, recharging its battery, so it was slowly starving—a problem which is a non-issue for me, since I can just do the needful there and recharge it all I need to, now that I'm in control. Brockton Bay was on the list for Leviathan, canonically, because of Dauntless. Now that he's dead, and I am the shard, I've sent them the shutdown and return to base command. No more Endbringers."

Missy was at a loss. She didn't know what to think. Her mind awhirl with thoughts, she asked, "So all of this could have been prevented if this C—" Miles clamped her mouth shut, forcing the word, "group," from her lips. Getting the hint, Missy nodded. "If this group had just left it alone and not poked the bear?"

"Pretty much. Though, in their defense, they're trying to save the worlds from Golden Boy. It's not much of a defense, because they get up to some fucked up shit. We all know what the road to hell is paved with."

Taking a shaky breath, Missy nodded. "Then I'm glad you did it. But I'm fucking pissed that you kept me out! Next time we need to do something like this, don't shut me out, you ass. I understand the need for secrecy with this one, if he had some sort of Thinker power up he could have known we were coming by reading my mind or something. But I'm not a child. If, if saving the world takes getting blood on your hands, then I want to be there with you every step of the way." Her voice went quiet as she closed her eyes. "…We can share the burden."

"If you're sure."

"I'm fucking sure," she murmured. "Ugh, God I'm tired. Don't wake me up before noon."

"Actually, I'm going to be joining you for sleep. This shit wiped me out. Night."

"Good night," Missy yawned, swiftly drifting off to sleep.

[hr][/hr]

"What the fuck is that?"

"Oops?"

"'Oops?' 'Oops,' he says," Missy grumbled, watching the local news as she lay in bed the following afternoon.

She felt her reaction was pretty fucking warranted, given what she was seeing. On the screen, a monster that looked like it had stepped straight out of a Japanese horror movie terrorized police and PRT alike. They weren't even showing more than a few clips of the thing and Missy was already creeped out. Still, the way the woman in the clip moved? Oh, she wanted that.

"Okay, how are you doing that?"

"Hm?"

Missy growled. "Don't play fucking dumb! The teleporting. Since when can we do that?!"

"Oh, that. Since last night, after I ate Eidolon's shard."

Missy's eye twitched and she glared into space. And then, her lips curved up into an amused smirk outside of her will.

"Okay, fine. We're not teleporting. Not really. I've had a theory for a while now. You know I can keep matter in a pocket dimension. So I thought, why not move your body into the pocket dimension?"

Crossing her arms under her breasts (not actually hers, sadly), Missy nodded. "Alright, so how's this equate to popping up in other places?"

"Hmm… Imagine if you had a quarter in your right hand, but you could move it to your left hand, because they're connected. You're the quarter in this metaphor, and the hands are my biomass. I flooded the place with my mass and just moved your body from one place within my mass to another, using the pocket dimension as a middle ground."

Missy nodded again. "So, not something you can pull off without some setup?"

Her hand moved up, wagging side to side in a so-so gesture. "Sort of. Minimal setup. Take maybe a second or two to get enough biomass out to work. … Oh, wait, I'm a dumbass."

Missy rolled her eyes, but politely refrained from the obligatory 'duh.' "So I can make bodies for things I've consumed now. Independent bodies. I did it getting back here—"

"Wait," Missy's gut turned to ice for a moment. "You… you don't need me any more?"

Miles paused, and then the suit around her gave her an all over squeeze. "I still need you, Missy. And even if I didn't, I wouldn't leave unless you asked me to. They're just lumps of biomass, not real bodies. I could probably grow a real one now, but… I think I'd get bored without my favorite little smartass tagging along."

"You're a dick," Missy chuckled, relief flooding her as she shook her head.

"Anyway, as I was saying. I don't see why I couldn't just send out birds or something all over the place and use them as teleport markers. It's definitely something to consider for setting up a fast travel network. But it's not really a trick we want to pull as Widow in any sort of fight, or the game is up and they'll figure out that Widow is Noh Face."

"No Face? Yeah, makes sense. That mask is fucking creepy."

Miles laughed. Standing up, Missy's body moved into the bathroom, standing in front of the mirror. A mask of bone grew out from her face, but also felt something else shifting. "Not 'No Face.' N-o-h Face. As in the Japanese plays that use these types of masks. Specifically because it sounds exactly like N-o Face. Because…" Missy's hand reached up and pulled off the mask, and the girl tried to flinch away, scream, and cover her eyes all at once… but Miles held her in place and forced her to look. "This is what that guy with the time bubble saw when he knocked my mask off. Great, huh?"

"You. Ass!" Missy growled, turning away from the mirror as her face shifted back to MJ mode and storming back into the room. Turning off the TV, she fished out her bike keys. A red helmet formed over her head, along with red leather jacket, red leather gloves, black leather chaps over her legs, and a set of black knee-high boots. She left the room, leaving the room key inside. "We're going home."

"Pfft no. Fuck no. We've got some stops to make."

Sighing, Missy started the bike and pulled out onto the road. "Where?"

"Follow the signs for I-10. Get on it and head east bound and down about five hours, maybe six or seven, depending on traffic. It'll probably be night by the time we get there, which is fine. I popped your Mexican and Texican cherries, now we're going for the Big Easy. How's gator sound?"

Missy frowned as she considered the question. "I don't know. What's it taste like?"

"Snake." The blonde rolled her eyes as Miles laughed in her head. "Tastes vaguely like fish with the consistency of chicken. Which is what every snake I've ever eaten tastes like. And no, that's not a euphemism for cock. I can introduce you to gumbo, jambalaya, crawfish, beignets, meat pies, and so on. And before we leave, remind me to pick up some seasoning. I refuse to live on the bland garbage you call food for the rest of my life. … God, I want a steak so bad."

"So go get one like a normal person?" Missy asked as she spotted a sign for the interstate and took the next turn.

"Haha no. Fuck no. No restaurant cooks a proper steak unless you're spending about a hundred bucks a plate. No, you buy the steak, marinade it, season it, and then grill and/or smoke it until medium rare at most—anything more done than that is a waste. Although… yeah, it's not like we don't have money. Fine, we can get one. And then when we get back, I'll grill one and you can see the difference for yourself."

Chuckling, Missy shook her head. "Food snob," she accused.

"You become one as you get older and learn how to cook."

The bike ate up the miles beneath them as their conversation fell off. Miles did something Missy wasn't entirely certain of and then she had local radio playing straight into her brain, pouring out the sounds of country, blues, and zydeco. As they left the city, the air cleared of the stench of exhaust and people and filled with the smells of grass, trees, and water.

Missy's helmet shifted away, leaving her with just a set of sun glasses to keep the wind out of her eyes, as she rode along with the sun at her back and the wind in her hair. Despite being the start of November, where she would be freezing her tits off back home without Miles wrapped around her keeping her warm, this far south the air was a still pleasantly warm 70 or so degrees—pretty much perfect driving weather on the bike.

As was becoming more common lately, for a short while, she felt… free.View This ThreadUnread Watched Threads

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