85 The Importance of Arithmetic

The street is full of tension, enough that even the bears are frozen and silent, their instincts warning them of just how many predators there are now surrounding them.

However, there is one person who doesn't seem to get the message.

"Oi!! I'm in the middle of something here!" I shout at Jack, waving my arm at him like an old man would to complain about kids on their lawn.

Jack's eyes barely widen enough for me to notice it to denote his minute surprise while his lips quirk up in a much more obvious show of amusement.

However before he can respond, Wrangler whisper shouts at me with an incredibly urgent and fear filled voice.

"What are you doing!?! Are you insane!? That's the fucking 𝘚𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘕𝘪𝘯𝘦! Don't shout at them!!" I can't help but notice that he sounds normal now, just with a slight southern accent.

I guess the cowboy thing really was just putting on an act. That's kind of disappointing actually.

In response to him, I bring my pinkie to my ear and start lazily picking at it while exaggeratedly looking over the serial killers.

"Nah.~" Is all I say and Wranglers confusion and annoyance at me must have overridden his fear as he immediately shouts back at me.

"The fuck-" "Language!" "-do you mean no?! They're right there!!" Completely ignoring the high pitched shout at his cursing, he waves his arms frantically in the direction of the worlds most famous murderers.

But I just give him a huff and look away from him, crossing my arms as I do so.

"Tch tch, can't you see? There are only eight of them! How could they be the Slaughterhouse 𝘕𝘪𝘯𝘦 if there are only eight of them huh!? Dumbass-" "Language!!" Turning to the little girl I don't hesitate to shout my own response before retuning to what I was saying, "-English! ahem, learn to count."

Before we can continue this wonderful dialogue, Bonesaw's frustrated voice sounds out once more.

"That's not what I meant! You shouldn't cuss! It's naughty!" My god she is so adorable.

Doesn't mean I'm not going to fuck with her though.

"And 𝘺𝘰𝘶 shouldn't interrupt people! That's rude too, and I was in the middle of something here!"

Surprisingly, Bonesaw seems to actually reel from my words as if I physically attacked her and makes a face like I just killed her parents in front of her or some shit.

Interesting. That is a significantly greater response than I was expecting.

However this is when Jack decides to speak up, dragging my attention away from the little girl.

"I'm not sure if I should be calling you brave or stupid, Bear Girl. At the least, you are pretty entertaining but this is really the part where you should start running. Siberian."

At his command, the striped woman starts to approach with a dangerous smile growing on her face.

"Oooh~ sca~ary." I mock as she gets closer, only to remember that she is literally an immovable object and unstoppable force all in one and immediately seem to sober, "actually, I take back how I said that, you really are pretty scary, though you're kinda sexy as well so I'm not really sure how I should be feeling right now. I mean, one part of me doesn't want to get torn to bits but the rest of me wants to know if I can cop a feel while you do it, you know?~"

Jack, Crawler and Frankenstein all seem to enjoy my joke that is only half a joke, the rest are a mix of uncaring and annoyed. Fortunately for me, Siberian seems to be of the former which really does make sense if you think about it.

A woman that walks around naked isn't exactly going to be a prude.

Still, I can't just let her walk up to me, I might die after all.

No one can hurt the Siberian and she can hurt everything. That's basically how her power seems to work.

So once she has crossed about half the distance to me, I turn to Yogi beside me and apologise in my mind.

You will not be missed and you will swiftly be forgotten, but your sacrifice is a necessary one for my next joke.

Grabbing him by his front paw, I repeat what I did to Wrangler, only with a whole lot more force and throw Yogi at the sexy zebra.

"YOGI BEAR I CHOOSE YOU!!!" I scream as Yogi goes flying down the street, making distressing noises all the while.

However, once he hits Siberian, she doesn't so much as slow, as if Yogi's entire mass is little more than a light gust of wind.

At the same time, Yogi gets split in half, as if she is one of those water jet cutter things. His organs basically explode over the woman and start falling out of the two halves of his body as they land on the ground with a wet squelch.

I watch with interest as all of the blood and viscera that decorated Siberian starts sliding down her body, like water on glass, until she is only a few steps away from me and completely clean.

Damn that's useful.

She comes to a stop right in front of me, close enough that our chests are nearly touching, and she smiles down at me, a smile I return, not that she can see it with the mask, but it's the intent that matters.

"Is this the part where you proposition me? Or should I also get naked first?~" I tease directly to her face, her 5'8 form standing just an inch taller than my own 5'7 self.

She responds by thrusting one of her hands forward, seeming to be intending on ripping out my heart. I think about dodging, but fair's fair, so I allow her to rip into my chest without the slightest resistance and take hold of my heart, while at the same time I thrust my own hand forward, reaching for the same location.

Only her flesh is invulnerable, she doesn't even smell of anything, so instead of my hand piercing her I just end up grabbing at her chest.

Kukuku, all according to plan.

I give it a couple of squeezes, noting that there is basically no springiness whatsoever, which makes sense with the whole invulnerability and all, but I have noticed that her hair still sways in the wind, so clearly she can be selective about it.

So as she takes her hand out of my chest and looks down at her own, all the while she shoves my heart into her mouth and starts chewing, I speak out with a pout.

"Hey~ stop using your power on your boobs, it's not the same if they don't squish. That's like, half the fun.~"

Looking back at me, she sees that the hole in my chest is already gone and despite not seeming to have a problem with the molestation, that seems to annoy her, so she whips her other hand up, intending to cleave through my head.

I'm pretty sure I can survive that, but I don't really want to, so I reluctantly let go of her breast and jump back a little to dodge her.

"Woah!~ Close one!~ Be careful~ if we weren't already so close I'd think you were tying to kill me or something!~" Rather than getting annoyed at my playful words, she just grins at me and starts a game of cat and mouse, with me as the mouse.

As she starts chasing me around I do my best to keep my dodges as close to her as possible, though I do misjudge a couple of times and loose some skin and at the same time, I idly notice the glass fronts of the stores around us shattering, followed by a few panes of glass carrying food and other supplies back to the RV.

I guess they are just here for a pit stop or something.

Due to my superior speed I am capable of keeping our game of cat and mouse in the same street as their RV by running in circles, which is why we can both hear Jack perfectly fine after about an hour of just running about, playing tag.

"Siberian! Stop playing with your food! If you want to make it in time to recruit that new cape then we can't stay for too long!" To be honest, I kind of forgot about the rest of them.

It's been ages since I played tag, so I was just having fun.

Turning to Jack even as I keep dodging Siberian, I notice him gesture at the clown wannabe and all of a sudden, enlightenment strikes.

Well, not really. But an opportunity does arise as clearly Jack wants the faker to come help Siberian finish me off.

The fake clown chuckles his weird little chuckle and then he blurs forward, speed betraying his size.

But he is not fast enough.

The moment he is withing arms reach of me, right as I am in the middle of dodging Siberian, a half dozen spears of condensed and hardened blood shoot out of my side at him.

I see him try to start moving to dodge in slow motion, but it's too late and I'm too fast.

My ribbons each find themselves buried inside of his fat torso and I don't hesitate to rip each of them in separate directions, causing Fatty to explode into chunks of blood and gore.

Everyone else pauses at the unexpected outcome and I use the moment to impale each of my ribbons into the ground to hold myself up in the air for extra mobility.

Looking down on them all, I rip off my bear mask and finally allow my eyes to turn red with my power, giving them all a big smile.

"Whoops!~ Sorry about that~ guess I was expecting him to be as good as the sexy zebra lady.~ Didn't think he'd pop so easily, teehee.~" I finish my little taunt by knocking myself on the side of the head and sticking my tongue out at them.

At the same time, a quick glance around shows that while I was distracted with Siberian not only have all the people around us been killed but Bonesaw has started doing some surgical Tinker stuff on the bears, cutting them open and.. is she trying to make a human bear hybrid right now?

Ok I actually really want to know if that works out or not and whether or not they would be edible to me.

Food for thought.. heh.

"Well now, would you look at that. It seems we won't be needing to make a visit to Denver after all, isn't that nice?"

Jack's voice brings everyone's attention to him, something that he seems to revel in.

Bonesaw looks between him and I with a sparkle in her eyes while Crawler actually seems to grow interested in his surroundings, rather than just lazing around like the worlds biggest cat.

Siberian's reaction is the one I like the most though, as her eyes go from predatory to.. a different type of predatory, one that seems like a lot more fun.

"You see Tear, it is incredibly rare for anyone to receive more than one nomination to join our merry band, in fact, I don't think it's actually happened before. Congratulations!"

Huh, so they were on their way to Denver to recruit me? Must be why they recognised me so quickly after letting my ribbons out.

How intriguing. I was looking for something interesting to do.

"Oh?~ Are you saying I have fans here?~ How exciting!~" I exclaim, playing up the bit.

"Something like that," he gestures to Siberian and Crawler, "these two both want you to join us, so what do you say? Wanna travel around with us and have some fun?"

Talk about a win win situation. Seriously though, how lucky am I that fun things are just falling into my lap like this?

"How could I say no to such an attractive proposal?~" I smile down at them and dismiss my power, dropping to the floor and walking closer when Jack's voice sounds out again, bringing me to a stop with a wry smile.

"Naturally you still have to pass a test from each member first." His voice is playful and filled with amusement that I reluctantly share, a slightly annoyed smile on my face as I turn to face him with a sigh, ready for whatever tests they are going to throw at me.

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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

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