Chapter 13

We left immediately the next morning. The disagreeable human from yesterday, whose name I found out was Jordan, tried forestalling the entire group from departing by giving another loud, impassioned and very annoying speech about how “we shouldn’t let this bug man trick us into becoming food!”, but I simply ignored him.

“You are free to stay here but I’m leaving…after the Cleaners eat you, rest assured…that at least you didn’t follow…the scary ant man ” I told them.

Obviously one of them stayed behind, including a very red faced and fuming Jordan. His attitude didn’t phase me, every group I escorted had at least one loud, obnoxious fool who tried to undermine my authority, and every one of them eventually found themselves humbled by me.

I would not be mocked by bait.

I stood at the helm of the group, spearheading the fight against anything that might come to attack us. Behind me, marching in single file, were three groups of ten headed by my lieutenants. I even assigned each group little jobs they could do. Cory’s group was assigned lookout, Tim’s group would set up camp whenever we couldn’t rest in a town or a house, and Holden’s group were all given spears to defend everyone with.

In reality none of these roles were needed besides the camp team, but I found that it made the humans happier to feel like they were doing something important. Ember had a better set of eyes than any human and with my fighting ability I was pretty sure I could take on an Abrams tank and win.

“They’re just so damned inefficient.” I thought, glancing back at the group.

Speaking of inefficient, I had expected us to reach London by the end of the day since it was only a ten mile trek from Charleston to there, but much to my displeasure there was some trouble along the way. And that trouble took on an all new form than anything that I had seen before.

We were at about half way to our destination when my feelers picked up movement in the distance. Half a minute later Ember also picked up that something was ahead of us, and whatever it was spooked her because she suddenly started raving into my ear.

“MASTER!! Danger, big danger up ahead! Oh dear, oh my! Ok, calm down everyone, this is what we’ve been training for after all. We just have to believe in the Master, we just have to believe!”

“Ember, I’m the only one who can hear you. Whatever it is I’ll be fine-”

“Master, you don’t understand! I know what’s ahead of us, and it isn’t a Cleaner or a Scout! The fact that one of them is here means that the grace period in this area is OVER!” she said, growing more frantic.

“Does that change what we have to do?” I asked

“I mean…no, but still-”

“But nothing. Whatever that thing is doesn’t matter. I’ll still have to fight it, I’ll still have to consume it, and after that I’ll still have to do the same thing for the next giant bug that comes around. It does no good to worry, so just stay calm and tell me what I’m up against.”

Ember stopped and allowed herself a few moments to steady herself, then said “Alright! Sorry I lost my composure there for a second! Ahem, the enemy ahead of us is called a Demolisher. Their primary function Is to clear out human infrastructure. Buildings, roads, power lines, all of it is just food to a Demolisher. They are omnivorous, and will eat quite literally anything, including other Demolishers, making them terrible as soldiers but excellent as terraformers. Their primary combat characteristics are their massive size and nearly impenetrable defense.”

I nodded, mulling the information in my head, then turned to address the humans

“Attention!” I shouted “Bad news humans…remember when I said things would get worse?…well they got worse…a few hundred meters ahead there is a brand new kind of bug…it is directly in our path…so I will dispose of it…Tim, Cory and Holden make sure no one gets too close.”

The three men nodded. We marched for another ten minutes before the Demolisher was in sight, tearing up the asphalt in the road. It had a large, black body that was about as long as a semi truck with the cargo bay attached. On its massive back were a pair of wings, which were shaped in a way that made it appear bulkier than it actually was. It looked very familiar, but it wasn’t until it lifted its massive head out of the road to see us that I finally knew what it was.

“Oh my god, is that a…?!” Tim exclaimed.

“Jesus, that is the worst!” Cory said, disgusted.

“Had to call an exterminator about a year ago for these things, guess this is just desserts, huh?” Holden muttered.

“Kukuku, it looks scrumptious…” I said, snapping my mandibles together, for this new enemy was, in fact, a…

“COCKROACH!!!EWWWW!” screamed one of the women behind us, practically tearing her hair out as she broke the group and ran. Several others followed her, including Jordan.

“Hmph, pansies…you three, go regroup and watch…this’ll be over soon enough…” I said.

Cory and Tim immediately followed my orders, but Holden stood stock still, gazing through glazed over eyes at the Roach.

“Do you have something…you wish to say Holden?” I asked, but he still didn’t answer me. I walked over to him and shook his shoulders.

“HOLDEN!” I shouted, startling him out of his daze.

“Who, wha-, I uh…what was I…sorry, right I’ll go regroup…” he said, stumbling over his words

“Is everything alright?” I asked

“Yeah, everything is fine I was just…thinking.”

“…Very well, then go get your chickens in a row…i’ll be back.”

“Master, do you think he’ll be ok?” Ember asked, worried.

“No, probably not. He lost his wife in this place, and he’s not exactly a young man anymore. I wonder how the shock of it all is affecting his heart.”

I shook my head, brushing those thoughts to the side for now to focus on the enemy in my view. The Demolisher had definitely taken intrigue to our group because he was lumbering right toward me now. It wasn’t exactly fast, but because of its sheer size the length of its gait meant that it covered ground quickly.

I crouched down low and then jumped at it, meeting its charge, threw as powerful a punch as I could right into the Roaches skull and…!

Nothing. Though I struck it with every once of my considerable strength I didn’t leave so much as a dent in the things' armor. I couldn’t even knock it backwards. The Roach looked at me quizzically, then lunged with its mouth open. Though frazzled by its defense I still managed to jump out of the things reach quite easily.

“I see what Ember meant about its defense. This thing makes Tetra and Kuron look like they were made of paper. If blunt force can’t crack it then my other arms probably won’t work either, so…let’s try this.”

I raised my arms and exposed my hypodermics, enlarging them just as I had done against the Cleaners. I sprayed the Roach down my acid. I had expected this attack to deal it some actual damage, but much to my surprise the Roach was barely phased by the acid dripping from it’s body.

He was being burned by it, but the acid was working far more slowly than it had been against every other insect I used it on. What’s more, the monster's size meant that there would be much more surface area to dissolve than before.

I had managed to make it mad though, as the Demolisher suddenly reared up on its back legs and slammed its massive body down on where I was standing. I dodged it again, jumping up into the air and aiming my arm spikes at its eyes. The spikes managed to pierce those, but while my attack did blind the Roach it didn’t actually get me any closer to killing it.

It’s feelers could sense my location, and no sooner had I touched back down onto the ground that the Roach tried to stomp on me. I weaved in and out of its legs easily, trying to think of a way to stop it, when suddenly I remembered another ability that I had recently obtained.

“Heh, well that might just work actually” I thought, formulating the plan in my head. “Alright then you giant pest, first let's stop those legs of yours.”

From the palms of my hands a tiny hole opened up, and from those holes came a white fluid. As soon as the fluid came into contact with the air it became viscous and sticky. I worked quickly, stretching the viscous material out, wrapping it around each leg as it came down and then making more material.

“M-M-Master, is that…!” Ember said from a few dozen meters away.

I tuned her out. I was already doing four things at once right now, I didn’t need to add the strain of keeping up a conversation. I clumsily wove more and more of the material around the Roaches legs, and slowly but surely I could sense his movements slowing down. If it were intelligent, the roach would have stopped what it was doing and flew away, but luckily for me it seemed to only have as much intelligence as a Scout.

“It is! Master, you learned how to use webbing so quickly!? That’s amazing, even I thought it would take you a while…”

‘Learned’ was a strong word. Last night I had simply been fumbling around with the power while I was eating, only figuring out how to turn the liquid into actual webbing just before morning. You couldn’t call what I was doing ‘making a web’, I was really just throwing the stuff around and by the grace of God, this guy was dumb enough to entangle himself in it.

His size was intimidating, his shell tougher than anything I had ever seen, but there was no making up for lack of intelligence and soon the Demolisher was completely trapped in my webbing, helplessly thrashing against bonds that only tightened up further the more it moved.

When at last the Roach was still I took a stance next to it and delivered a powerful kick, which successfully flipped the beast over onto its back, exposing its underside. I hopped up onto it and, just as I had done earlier, delivered as powerful a punch as I could.

The results were better than I had hoped. Unlike the hard head and back the underside dented a little, so I punched again. And again. And again, laying a barrage of punches into the things tummy, Until-!

“YEEEEEESSSSSSSSS” I yelled, after finally making a hole in the Demolishers armor. From outside in the carapace was a foot thick, but the chitin on its belly wasn’t nearly as hard as it was on the backside.

I stuck my blades inside the gaping wound I had made, causing the Roach to squeal in pain and struggle some more, but there was nothing it could do to stop me prying the hole open further. The smell of its innards was intoxicating me, and I wouldn’t be able to hold myself back much longer. When the hole was big enough I practically dove in, with half my body sticking out of the Roaches, I enjoyed my fill of live prey.

****

Holden

“Is it over?” Tim asked uncertainly, squinting his eyes.

“Looks like it, that sucker ain’t gonna be getting out of those webs any time soon.” Cory replied “What do you think, Holden?”

I didn’t answer, the pain in my stomach was too intense. It was taking everything I had not to let it show on my face.

“Holden?” he asked again. I knew I had to answer, but it was difficult.

Gritting my teeth, I said “Yeah, looks ‘bout finished. Seems he decided to kill it from the inside instead of out.”

“That guy is crazy…” I heard a snide voice mutter behind me.

“Jordan” I thought, rage filling my head.

Before we were captured by the Tarantulas, Jordan had been the one leading our group. It was his fault that they found us in the first place. He had had the bright idea to light off fireworks in the middle of the night to try and lure someone over who could help us. And even when the entire group voted no to his stupid plan he went and did it anyway.

“It’s his fault Ayumi is dead.” I thought. “And it’s his fault that i…”

I shook my head. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that. I knew the time was coming soon, but until then I would like to get the measure of what kind of man Forminus was. And if he met my standards then when the time comes, maybe I would be able to help him.

“Do you think it’s safe to go over there?” Tim asked, drawing me out of my thoughts.

“I reckon so. C’mon boys, let's interrupt our fearless leaders dinner.” I said

They looked less than enthused about that.

****
Forminus

I was sat on top of the now dead Demolisher's body, finishing off the last bits of the brain and heart I had pulled out of it. I hadn’t believed it possible, but this thing tasted even better than Tetra.

“You weren’t wrong Ember. This guy was the first enemy I couldn’t just mow down with my powers. Realistically, I probably would have lost this fight if he were smart enough to back off for a moment.”

“Mmhmm, and there will be many more of his level of strength and higher. On a scale of one to ten, with one being a Scout and ten being the Queen herself, I would put his kind at abouuuut a…..2.5 maybe?”

I almost choked on my food as I sputtered “A 2.5!? That thing could tank a meteorite and you’re telling me he’s only a 2.5 out of ten!? Just what kind of insane monster is this queen?”

“She is said to be beauty and power incarnate, a true marvel of nature! That her powers were bestowed upon her by God himself! Though I’ve never been close enough to her to validate all of the rumors, if even a single one of them is true then it is safe to call her a walking miracle.”

A walking miracle huh? My mind flashed back to the images of Harry, Thomas, Bryan, and the dozens of other dead humans I had seen and for a moment I was skeptical. But then I also remembered Enginar, the Valiant Fool. Shiron and Kuron, the bound brothers and the little Caretaker, who was ever so pleased to be with Terry. And, of course, my own Ember who I couldn’t imagine life without. Because of her many good people had died. But at the same time, many good people were born.

Marcus would have argued that the bugs were evil for killing and innocent humans, but I would retort by asking him how many flies he’s swatted in his life.

“Tch, well I can see what you mean. Doesn’t mean I won’t eat her too though, if she gets on my nerves.”

“Master shouldn’t make jokes like that, they’re in bad taste.” Ember said fearfully.

I sighed, licking my feelers clean, and turned my head to face the humans that were now running up to me. Heading the pack was Tim, with Cory and Holden not far behind him.

“Yo!” Tim said, waving his hand “Nice work Forminus! How did you-” he stopped then and did a double take at me. “What happened to you?” he asked.

I looked at my body, about to ask what he was talking about, but then I noticed something I probably should have noticed earlier.

My body had turned from deep blue to metallic black. For a moment I wondered if I had somehow gotten burned, but then it occurred to me that the Demolisher also had this exact shade of black covering its body.

“Did I gain its hard exoskeleton?” I wondered, marveling at my new carapace.

There was only one way to check. I once again kicked the Roach over and jumped up on it, then drew back my arm for a full power punch. Bringing my fist down, I punched right through the Demolishers back-which was two feet of thick carapace and even harder than the underside.

“Well shit…” I heard Cory remark.

“Master, for reference your carapace should now be hard enough to pierce the strongest metals.” Ember said

I was tempted to throw a few more punches, but decided that I could experiment more later. We had already spent too long here getting past the Roach and I wanted to be in London by nightfall.

“Have you gathered your groups?” I asked my Lieutenants.

They all nodded, and signaled to their teams to form up.

“Then let us continue our journey…ah, and remind me to thank everyone…for their contribution during the fight.” I said

“But , uh, we didn’t do anything.” Tom said.

“Nonsense Tim…you all functioned exactly as you were meant to…I am escorting you to get food…your job is to attract that food to me.”

“You don’t always have to take the fight all on yourself, you know? We can back you up if you need us to.” Cory said

“…I appreciate the sentiment, I really do…but I am the only one capable of fighting…you would all simply be killed…”

Holden, who had been silent up to now, said “But why should that matter to you? Even if you lose one or two worms you’ve still got a whole box of bait left over.”

I stopped. “Do you think I’m a monster?” I asked. When nobody answered I said “Well from your perspective…I probably am…the bugs want to kill and eat you…and I want to kill and eat them…so if they’re monsters to you…then I’m a demon who eats monsters…my appetite is insatiable…does that answer your question?” I asked, glancing back at Holden.

I expected him to be stony faced, but to my surprise he was grinning for the first time since I met him.

“Yeah, that’s the answer I wanted to hear. Everything you eat makes you stronger, right? And you’ll use that strength to kill and eat even more. You’ll hunt down every last bug if it means getting a meal, because you’re a glutton.”

He said all of this quite happily, as if my unending hunger was a source of relief for him.

“Forminus, I admire that about you. You’ll spend the rest of your days slaughtering the monsters that caused all of this tragedy and killed my wife. I’d like to ask you if you’d accept a gift from me. Hopefully it’ll help you kill even more of em.”

“A gift? Very well, anything…if it will fill my stomach.”

Harold's smile grew a little wider as he opened his mouth and said “Mr. Forminus. I’d like you to eat me.”