In the forest-laden roads surrounding Murinova, it was rare to ever see anything other than a familiar commuter’s car or a delivery truck moving through these swirling streets that pierced through nature. But this was one of those rare instances. A white sedan zoomed throughout these woods, disobeying the speed limit by a considerable percentage, while its two occupants stared at the seemingly endless forest with anxiety.
The driver was a Filipino man, no older than 30, dressed in a disheveled dress shirt and ruffled slacks, with bags adorning the bottoms of his eyes. After casually making a sharp turn, he grabbed a thermos stained by the color and odor of coffee, but it only contained a single sip to satiate his thirst and desire for caffeine. A hearty sigh escaped his lips as he pushed his unkempt hair back with a single hand while keeping the other firmly planted on the steering wheel. He attempted to refocus on the repetitive backdrop that painted the road, but soon found his eyes drifting over to his passenger as concerned Filipino words came out of her mouth.
“Carlos, you really should let me take it from here. The last thing we need is you getting into an accident.”
Carlos paused for a moment to take in this young South Asian woman’s appearance, which in many ways mirrored his own. She was still in her work attire, that of a pink-hued blouse and pencil skirt, had her lengthy hair scrunched up into a sloppy bun, and looked to be approximately 30-years-old. Tear stains could be seen around her eyes, and her entire face was locked in an expression of anguish. Carlos repressed his sorrow as he looked at her and replied in a neutral tone.
“Beth, we’re almost at the next town. We can talk things through when we get there.”
“But what if our daughter isn’t there? We’ve called everywhere, nobody has found anything, and what if they don’t? What if we never find her?”
“I told you to stop worrying about hypotheticals. We’ll check this place, call everywhere else if we don’t find anything, and if we don’t get any hints, we can stay the night, try and get some sleep, and tackle things tomorrow.”
“You don’t know what’s in these woods though! Nobody does! We’re going to need to have a search party and— oh, what if she—”
“For the last time! We’ll figure it out when we get there!”
The couple wallowed in silence after the husband’s outburst, and not a peep escaped from either’s mouth. Not until a minute passed and the husband finagled his way around yet another swerving turn.
“…I’m sorry dear, it’s just… It’s been a hard day. You know that you and Abi mean the world to me. And while I may seem insensitive, it’s just because I need to do this. I need to be strong enough for the two of us… I love you, honey.”
“And I love you, sweetie.”
As this routine scuffle was efficiently resolved, the two let out mutual sighs of relief as they passed a sign bearing the name of their destination, Murinova, indicating that the settlement was a mere kilometer away. Hushed forms of excitement reverberated through the two as their car steadily made its way up a gentle incline to a purported entrance to the city, only to be met with a dire sight. A police car accompanied by two wooden sawhorses, establishing a blockade guarded by three men. Two police officers, and another man dressed in civilian clothes.
Shortly after Carlos stopped the car and recognized this sight, he was approached by one of the guarding officers, who tapped on their window, encouraging him to roll it down.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Murinova is currently placed under quarantine. Nobody is allowed in or out.”
Those few words were enough to cause Beth’s and Carlos’s eyes to widen. They struggled to comprehend that their voyage to this town was all for naught.
“What do you mean quarantine? My daughter might be in there! Please, I need to go and check if anybody has seen her!”
Carlos’s reply was articulate, having practiced and honed his English greatly throughout his life, with only a slight accent remaining in his voice. Yet the clarity of his words and desperate tone was not enough to convince the officer before him.
“Sir, I have my orders and I am obliged to uphold them. I must ask that you two leave.”
“Please, officer, we’ve been looking for our daughter for over 24 hours. We’ve looked everywhere else, but haven’t been able to find her, so she must be here and—” Beth explained to the officer in her moderately accented English, only to be interrupted by the officer in the midst of her plea.
“Ma’am, I can guarantee that nobody has entered or exited this town since the quarantine went into effect. I am sorry that your child has gone missing, but there is nothing I—”
As the guard proceeded to brush off the two once more, he found himself interrupted by a tap on the shoulder. The officer swiftly turned around and backed away, allowing this person to greet the couple. Carlos and Beth looked forward and saw a young black ‘woman’ dressed in a cream sundress, with lengthy hair restrained in a ponytail, and a chipper smile adorning her face. An individual known as Vice. But to the car-bound couple, ‘’she’ was a stranger with an enigmatic and imposing presence. They moved as if they held a great degree of power over their situation, and of others. All while dressed so casually and looking so young.
Vice moved toward the two with a smile on their face, before tapping on the driver’s side window, prompting Carlos to roll it down.
“Could you please tell us your daughter’s name?” Vice said with their sing-song voice.
“Her name is Abigale Quinata,” Beth replied with no hesitation. “She’s 7-years-old, short for her age, and was wearing a pink shirt when we last saw her. She— she’s been missing since yesterday morning and left a note saying that she was running away from home. We called the police station— the one in Murinova— about it last night, and tried calling again this morning, but we couldn’t get through.”
Upon hearing those words, Vice turned their heads to the trio of guards and twisted their face, almost as if they were suppressing a smile.
“We’ll make an exception for these two,” Vice said to the guards. “I understand their situation very well, and I do not see them as a potential threat to the safety of our township. Grant them entry.”
The guards wasted no time processing Vice’s words and began breaking down the blockade immediately, allowing the couple to enter Murinova freely, much to their shared shock. They stared at the guards in disbelief as they opened up a path for them before Vice leaned into the open driver’s side window and spoke to the two once more.
“Mister and Missus… Quinata, was it? Your daughter is safe and sound at the police station. We had a terrible fire last night, so things are out of sorts at the moment, and people are being a bit… cautious.”
Upon hearing this news, Beth wasted little time dashing out of the passenger’s door and to Vice, embracing them in a tight hug. She showered Vice with words of thanks and praise, drifting between English and Hindi as she spoke vigorously and passionately.
“Think nothing of it,” Vice said as they broke out of Beth’s bear hug. “I’m just glad I was able to get a hold of you two. I’ll head down to the station and let Abi know that you’re coming. It’s a bit tricky to find, so make sure you ask one of the officers for directions.”
With joy overflowing and newfound energy receding throughout their bodies, Carlos and Beth quickly heeded Vice’s advice and took note of where they could find their missing daughter in this quaint little town. By the time they asked all the questions they needed, the blockade was finally opened up, and the two wasted no time driving into Murinova’s borders.
This news left them elated… only for such elation to fade away after they got 50 meters into Murinova, when Carlos let out a sigh and spoke to his wife, in Filipino, once more.
“…Okay, what are we going to do about Abi? Are we still sending her to boarding school?”
“Sweetie… I don’t think we can keep doing this. I know that you grew up with a family that moved every few years, but you had siblings, you had people who were there for you, people you could call friends, and a mother who arrived home before dark every day. No matter where you were, you had a family. And any place where you’re with your family is your home. But Abi… we haven’t been there for her. She’s never truly had a home, and I think that’s where all of this stems from.”
“We worked so hard to get these positions, and you’re finally able to travel the world. That’s what you wanted, right Beth?”
“I got to see Tokyo, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Hawaii, and more places I never dreamed of. I’m overjoyed by that and would love to see even more… but I cannot put my happiness before the well-being of my child. I think we’ve hurt Abi a lot. I think that’s why she ran away. And I… I don’t want to hurt her. I don’t want her to hate us.”
“I don’t think she hates us. I think she’s just confused. She needs help and… we’re the only ones who can help her… Alright. I’ll meet with Mr. Onson on Tuesday and discuss new positions we can take on. He has a family of four, so hopefully, he will understand the strain this is putting on our daughter.”
“Thank you, Carlos. Thank you.”
As they concluded another brief debate in an expedient manner— a skill honed from constant interaction and a demand for efficient problem-solving in their work lives— Carlos and Beth continued to drive across the empty streets of Murinova. While doing so, they paid little mind to the eerie sentiment inherent to a town devoid of any people. Instead, their attention was focused on their destination, the Murinova police station. A single-story building with an empty parking lot, waving the nation, state, and town flags, and labeled with ample signage that plainly stated the location’s name.
Heeding little mind to whatever designated parking space they were meant to occupy, Carlos shoved his sedan into the closest spot he could, and promptly dashed out of the vehicle with his wife in tow. The two simultaneously opened the frosted double doors that marked the entrance. They were met with a quaint waiting area with chairs against the walls, a scattering of tables containing potted plants, magazines, and a chess set, and a large wall clock that displayed the time of 3:15 PM. However, such peripheral trappings were far from what caught the duo’s eyes. In front of them, they saw Vice, hunched down and patting the head of a small child.
A child with ruffled black hair that looked in dire need of a good washing. A child wearing a pink shirt with a print of a green snake on it, dark purple shorts, and beat-up Velcro shoes. It was none other than Abi, bawling her eyes out as she hid her cute face away into her hands. A sight that simultaneously filled Mr. and Mrs. Quinata with immense joy, and a deep dread, as they wondered what their child had been subjected to this past day.
In near unison, the two shouted out the name of their daughter, causing her head to jolt from her small hands and to her mother and father as they approached her. But she did not look at these two running persons with a degree of relief or happiness. Her tears ceased, brow furrowed, and whatever signs of sadness she once held were supplanted by an overwhelming anger
“GO AWAY!!!” Abi shouted at her parents, speaking as loudly and viciously as her body would let her.
“A-Abi? Are you alright?” Beth questioned her daughter as she, and Carlos, stopped less than a meter away from her.
“No! I never wanted to see you again! That’s why I ran away!”
“Abi… please, we can talk this through. We don’t want to hurt you or make things worse,” Carlos said, his voice heavy with exhaustion.
“Oh, we will talk this through. But first, you two should turn around and take a seat,” Vice said to Beth and Carlos, who were momentarily stunned by the suggestion.
“But we—” Beth began, only to cut herself off.
Vice slammed a hand against their outer thigh, pressing it through their dress, revealing an impression of a handgun holster that, presumably, held a loaded weapon. Both of the parents recognized the threat Vice was making, and, with death possibly seconds away, they turned around to a series of seats adorning the side walls of the police station lobby. They shared a look of concern and confusion as the two sat down next to each other, neither certain about much of anything.
“I’ll get both of you some coffee. We’re all out of cream, and a little someone spilled all our sugar into the sink. So you’ll have to settle for black,” Vice said as they exited stage left.
An oppressive silence lingered throughout the lobby as Abi gave the death glare to those who raised her. They stared back with strained and exhausted eyes that only came to life once Abi began this unpleasant conversation.
“Can you even remember how many times you came home past midnight, only to find me curled up on the cold floor, shivering as I slept. Or bundled up on the couch as I waited for you to come home and put me to bed? Actually, don’t bother. I can count past 50. After that, I guess I finally learned my lesson, that you wouldn’t be there for me. That I was on my own. That I couldn’t rely on you. You did give me food whenever I wanted it, made sure I always had fitting clothes and gave me more toys than most children. I was given the opportunity to look back on everything, to recount my brief life with extreme clarity, and I need to ask… why do I exist?”
Both Carlos and Beth wore stunned impressions as they heard such words come from their daughter’s lips. Traces of tears began to appear on both of their faces as they recounted their mistakes and digested this profound yet hurtful question. A question far too mature to come from a 7-year-old.
“Abi, we…” Carlos began, “We wanted a child, to bring someone else into our lives and form a family just as our parents had. And their parents, and their—”
“Really? If you wanted to ‘bring someone else into your lives,’ then why didn’t you actually include them in your lives? If you wanted a kid so badly, why didn’t you love them? Was I a disappointment? Did I not turn out as you wanted? Was I a bit too rebellious and rowdy for your liking? Well, maybe I was like that because I wanted some goldarn attention!”
“Sweetie, what’s going on with you? You aren’t like this,” Beth said between muffled sniffles.
“And I’m sure you know me so well… I do have fond memories of being with you, going out to carnivals, amusement parks, beaches, mountains… I was happiest when we did things like that. When I was with you two. When it was the three of us. When you were showing me things… teaching me things… and letting me see a lot of the world. You showed me what life could have been like together, only to deny me such happiness, and constantly shove me around the world. I needed to learn so much, and I lacked anyone to teach me.”
“I learned how to speak English pretty well,” Abi continued. “Nagsasalita ako ng Tagalog. Nihongo ga chotto wakarimasu. Aur mujhe kuchh hindee pata hai. But that was from my personal efforts. I learned it from teachers who taught me how to fit in with other kids. And I did for a while… but then I had to say goodbye to them after learning their language and culture, as your jobs sent you off to a new country. Or, if I was lucky, just a new city. That’s been my life. It’s the life you clearly wanted for me. Otherwise, why would you keep putting yourselves before me? Why would you deprive me of a normal childhood?”
“…I’m sorry Abi. I’m so sorry,” Carlos said as he hung his head in shame, not daring to look into his daughter’s blank eyes.
“Abi… your father and I were discussing our… treatment of you while on the ride over. We know we made some mistakes, and I promise— we promise, that all this traveling will stop soon. We… We were lying to ourselves, thinking that you were okay with this because you always seemed so happy so… chipper, so adventurous. But after you ran away, we realized how wrong we were. How much we truly hurt you in ways that… we want to make amends for. Please, Abi, come with us, and we’ll make sure that the next place we live in is a real home.”
Silence consumed the room. It lasted for what felt like hours, all before sound resumed once again as Vice came into the tense scene with two paper cups of hot coffee in their hands. They looked at the two distraught parents with a smile as they handed them the cups, and they thoughtlessly gripped them in both hands.
“You cannot undo your mistakes,” Abi resumed. “No matter how well you treat me going forward, you will have always spent the most important years of my life neglecting me, abusing me, and showing me your true colors. The people who you are deep down. Your natural, uncorrected impulses. Your morals and values. The fact that you considered yourselves and your careers to be more important than the life you created. And I know the reason why you are like this.”
“Your marriage was met with mutual disapproval,” Abi declared. “Yet, it was driven by a pure love that you were unable to communicate to your rigid parents. So, what better way to prove your passion for one another than to have a child of your own? They loved me, and as such, they accepted your romantic decision. I was conceived as a tool of yours. …I asked you why I existed, and you gave me no true answer. So, I thought about it as our conversation lingered… and this is the answer I came to. Am I wrong, mother and father? Is there a reason I cannot see?”
Disgust lingered across the faces of Beth and Carlos, but not at the concept so eloquently expressed by their inexplicably erudite daughter. Instead, they were disgusted with themselves. Because their daughter, age 7, had spoken the truth. A truth they had both repressed and tried their damndest to forget about. They looked at each other, struggling to devise a counterpoint or argument to these claims, but they could not. They could only muster a single diversionary question.
“Abi… how do you know all this?” Carlos croaked in response.
“The nice woman behind me, Vice, showed me the way. She saw into my mind, understood the struggles I went through, and gave me the capacity to understand what happened to me. I wondered for a moment if this was all a bunch of lies… but looking at your faces makes me realize that it’s the truth. You really did everything I think you did… you truly are monsters, aren’t you?”
“Please… Please, just make it stop! I’m sorry! Mujhe kshama keejiye! Patawad na po!” Beth said as she shoved her face in her forearms, and let her coffee fall to the carpeted floor.
“I won’t stop,” Abi said. “And there’s no going back to ‘the way things used to be.’ You see, a lot happened yesterday. I ate a dead person. I became an adult. I fought a monster of unspeakable horrors for a magical scarf from another world. And I was eaten alive. I doubt you’ll believe me, but maybe you will if I do… this.”
Abi raised her small arms up high, steadily lowered them to her sides, only to then shoot them both diagonally upwards to the right, with one completely straight and the other bent at the elbow, covering her face. Holding her body in this bizarre stance, Abi shouted the Japanese word “henshin,” and the entire room was consumed by light. A light that swiftly receded to reveal an older Abi, donned in green spandex, with silver gauntlets and boots, along with a stylish purple scarf draped over her neck. It was the form given to her by Peatrice— her superhero form as it were. It was more than enough to leave Beth and Carlos dazed, struggling to accept the surreal reality presented before them.
“That’s right, your little girl went and grew up while you weren’t looking. And while my story should have ended then and there, inside the stomach of Vice—”
“What can I say? You were trying to kill me, I wanted your power, and it had been years since I last had a kid inside me,” Vice interjected as nonchalantly as they possibly could.
“…They graciously gave me the opportunity to end things with you… And now, I’m ready to do so.”
Abi paused for a moment, granting her parents one final opportunity to put in a last word or possible retort. But alas, they remained silent, and Abi rose her hand up high while reciting a chant.
“I call upon the power of all that is light and white! Cast aside the human veils of these wretched beings and reveal to me the monsters that lie within!”
Abi waved her hands erratically, causing a white glow to encapsulate her silver gauntlets, and for something to begin stirring from within her parents’ innards. A stirring that sent them flailing out of their chairs and onto the coffee-stained carpet below, unable to control themselves as their bodies wiggled about incessantly. As their bodies moved about like a fish robbed of the comfort of water, the stirring sensation within only intensified, expanding throughout every facet of their forms.
The first manifestation saw their proportions extend well beyond the short statues they had all their adult lives, and into something far larger. Their bones swelled and skin stretched as their frames reached well beyond two meters in height, to the point they looked as if they were about to burst.
This height was soon followed by changes to their skulls and faces, particularly the two’s eyeballs, which ballooned to the size of a standard light bulb. Their eye sockets shifted and cracked to accommodate these uncanny orbs. Their jaws elongated and expanded as their teeth began to grow vertically, forming a maw of long bestial fangs that the two attempted to hide away with their lips, only to feel their grasp on such fleshy bits loosen quite literally. Both their front and upper lips simply slid off their face, leaving behind no traces of blood or the like. With giant eyes and lipless mouths bearing demonic teeth, they could easily be described as monsters. However, the transformation did not stop there.
Noses, ears, hair, fingers, and toes— effectively any expendable part of their person— began to detach themselves from their bodies, further adding to their sense of inhumanity. They attempted to cry out and scream from their loss and continued shock. But their very words were soon mutated from the crying screams of a man and a woman to an unnatural and unintelligible synthetic wailing. If a cassette recorder could emit a ‘blood curdling’ scream, it would sound something like them.
As Beth and Carlos continued to look at each other’s disfigured bodies with exasperation, the next phase began. Their stretched skin finally snapped, but instead of unfurling and releasing a torrent of blood, it came off in flakes. With every movement, most and more of their skin fell off from their forms, pooling into a puddle of brown-hued fragments that mingled with the navy carpeting, resulting in an unsavory mesh. Once their skin had been shed, and their ripped clothing with it, the two were left standing in their near finalized forms.
They were creatures with metallic skulls that shaped their head, but failed to cover a large splotch of brain-like flesh on their scalp. Glossy black eyes that lacked any degree of animalistic endearment, or any form of eyelid. And a mouth that was impractical for any living being, as the teeth made it impossible for either of them to close their mouths ever again. Their bodies retained a humanoid structure, with two arms, a torso, and two legs, but they were all adorned in a mixture of a dense leather-like substance and metallic trimmings, in addition to a viscous slime. Their arms, meanwhile, were elongated into appendages 1.5 meters in length, and with their floppy boneless nature, they were more reminiscent of tentacles than anything else. While their legs maintained a human shape, they lacked any easily identified knee joint, and possessed feet that more closely resembled hooves.
They were reminiscent of the type of monster characters common to pulpy film serials of old, and the sort popularized by many Asian film production studios. But whereas those were simply rubber suited stuntmen, these figures were made of flesh. Flesh that pulsated slightly, moved with a firm weight behind it and released a musky scent not dissimilar to rotting meat. The two had been screeching and moaning ever since the transformation began, and looking over their new forms, Beth and Carlos could do little more weep in sorrow at the unsightly nature of their bodies. Or at least they tried to. Without any functional tear ducts and altered voices, their attempts at sorrow came across as more of a mix of maniacal joy and fervorous rage.
“Accept the truth! You beings of black and vile! Accept the truth and prepare to be sent to the next dimension, once and for all!” Abi shouted at her parents.
Beth and Carlos did not heed her words, or any words for that matter, as the two had succumbed to a blind panic, crying and shouting as they waddled their disproportioned forms out of the police station. Abi watched them as they tried to maneuver the knobbed door, but took the initiative, leaping up as high as she could and delivering a jump kick to the back of Beth’s head, causing her to tumble onto the asphalt of the empty parking lot.
“There is no escape from justice, and there is no sense in hiding your true nature. Much like how there is no sense in hiding my true power! Enlarge to Gigantic!”
As those words escaped Abi’s lips, a visible energy began to permeate across her body, and the bodies of her parents. An energy that miraculously enabled the three to expand in scale and stature by a factor of twenty. The resulting 35 and 42 meter tall figures positively towered over anything seen within the flat landscape of Murinova, with the only structure even coming close to such extreme heights being the forest trees that surrounded them. In a sense, the trees served as the borders locking the three into an arena. One filled with hundreds of small buildings that could easily be demolished by a single misplaced step.
The three all took some time to get accustomed to this new scale. They wiggled their bodies about as they grew accustomed to their new weight, and darted their eyes around the town. Which, thanks to the dull grey sky and plain modernist architecture of the town, looked no more interesting from this vantage point than it did at a ground level. Well, with one exception. As Abi scoped her surroundings, she saw giant red barrels scattered throughout its blasé landscape. A curious addition that was only given context once the familiar voice of Vice reached the three giants, speaking to them from outside the police station through the use of a megaphone.
“Use the tankers to your advantage! Use them to kill your parents!”
Abi replied with a swift nod before redirecting her attention as her perplexed parents let out a series of mangled noises, which could have been representative of just about anything. Abi chose to interpret this as a battle cry of sorts and let out a shout before dashing towards her mother. Foreseeing the attack, Beth attempted to shield herself from the impact, and tossed her tentacles across her person, striking Abi in the process. The tentacle only hit her in the chest piece, negating the damage of the blow, but it was still enough to interrupt Abi’s attack and cause her to stagger backwards.
“Heh, finally fighting back are ya? Well, it’ll take a helluva lot more than just raw might to outmatch me!”
In response to this, Beth began to flail her arms about, attempting to project that she didn’t want to hurt Abi. But as her tentacle limbs scattered about, crushing buildings beneath, it was hard to recognize her actions as pleading ones. Abi closed the small distance between the two and grabbed one of her arms before delivering a hearty punch to Beth’s gut, followed by an uppercut to what remained of her chin. She toppled over from the attack, falling onto several buildings in the process, destroying their brickwork and devastating their foundation.
Recognizing this display, Carlos began running towards Abi, trying to finagle his tentacles onto her person in an attempt to contain her in a hug-like grip. A successful ploy thanks to good timing, but with only her torso embraced, Abi was free to jab Carlos in the face with her elbows and land a sturdy kick into the center of his leg. His grip subsequently loosened and he joined his wife on the ground, smacking his head into Dale’s Food Mart and causing it to burst into debris.
Before Carlos could even attempt standing up, he found his legs clenched under Abi’s arms as she began to spin herself around, lifting him once she built up sufficient momentum. Beth, having just gotten off the ground, shouted at Abi, as if pleading with her to stop assaulting her father. And, in a sense, she did, by tossing him into Beth, knocking both of them to the ground once more.
“C’mon, stand your ground a little better!” Abi shouted, her voice echoing throughout the town.
She began tapping her foot against the ground, slapping away assorted street fixtures and shattering the sidewalk with each impact, waiting for her parents to rise up from the ground. Once they did, they sought to attack in unison, but Abi was a touch more nimble than the hoof-footed duo and managed to circle around Carlos. There, she grabbed him from behind, latched her arms around his torso, lifted him into the air, and smashed his head into the pavement below, causing the asphalt to fracture open upon impact and dunking Carlos’s head into the Murinova sewage system. Her impromptu suplex was enough to knock Carlos down once again, and in doing so Abi drew the ire of Beth, who attempted to attack using her tentacle arms, only for Abi to dodge her floppy appendages and close the distance.
With Beth dazed by her daughter’s quick movements, Abi pulled her arms back and mustered the strongest punches she possibly could. She repeatedly slammed her fists into Beth’s torso over, and over, and over again, walloping her inhuman form until a green liquid began secreting from her leathery skin and jagged maw. Right before landing her final blow, Abi paused her assault abruptly, with her mother still standing. She looked into the lifeless obsidian-hued orbs that made up her mother’s eyes and smirked.
“Hit me like you really mean it. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
This comment sparked something within Beth, who abandoned whatever passive tactics she had been implementing and proceeded to bite down into Abi’s shoulder, sinking her teeth deeply through her green spandex and tearing out a chunk of flesh. Abi let out a vicious cry as her flesh was mutilated, and Beth only roared in response. Abi attempted to build distance between the two, darting her eyes around her peripheral vision in search for one of the tankers to help her out of this bind. Instead, she was halted by Carlos, who had finagled his thick and slimy tentacles over her neck, lifting her off the ground as he began to exude pressure onto her throat. She gagged and wheezed, tugging away at the tentacles while flailing her legs about, only to then see Beth running towards her.
In this dire situation, Abi shut her eyes and channeled whatever power she could into her right fist, which began to glow with an intense and burning white energy that drew the attention of both her parents. But before either could react, she took this pulsating first and slammed it into one of Carlos’s tentacles, which burst into two from the strike. The pain and shock of this attack caused Carlos’s grip to loosen, freeing Abi and giving her a moment to breathe. Meanwhile, Beth was distracted by her husband’s severed limb, squirming and flailing about as it continued to burn with a white flame. Beth and Carlos were rapt in such awe at the sight of this severed limb that they did not notice Abi sprinting away to the nearest tanker.
“Heh. When you guys get serious, I guess even my Fist of Justice isn’t quite enough. Well, if you think you’re so tough, then get a load of this!”
With that decree, Abi tossed the tanker, an object comparable to a 2 liter can given her proportions, at the duo, where it flew through the air before slamming onto their flattened battleground. The collision sent a stream of sickly brown fluid across Murinova, spreading throughout the streets, sidewalks, and the burning severed arm of Carlos. As the fluid touched the burning arm, the flames spread and, within a single second, the battlefield became an inferno.
Flames hopped across streets, latched onto trees, and danced throughout lawns, capturing the homes that remained standing. Entering through their doors, cracking through the windows, and devouring all who abided by the quarantine. While this destruction initially seemed limited, the tankers were scattered about the town deliberately, and they exploded as the flames drew near, dousing them with additional napalm to burn.
Residences, storefronts, the bordering woods, every person, every animal, and every obnoxious gnat and bothersome beetle, all were decimated by the relentless blaze. Even the mighty Abi was not spared. She burned like everything else, flailing in immense agony until all her form was charred and all movements from her body screeched to a halt.
It only took a matter of minutes but, after a day of foreplay, Vice had achieved their grand objective.
The town of Murinova was no more.
