“Zero!” Shiftra seems to be as taken aback as I am, on the back foot. I try and yell out at either of them, but Protocol Zero has his hand deep around my throat, leaving me dangle above the floor. I can barely choke out a sound. It’s taking all my energy not to choke out. “What are you doing here?” she asks. “I had this.”

He snarls, turning his head to face her. “You had orders, Shiftra. Go to your mark.” Maybe now that he’s distracted I can get the upper hand? I try and kick at him, make him drop me. He just catches my kick with his other arm, pushing it down, and then slams me against the wall again.

Blessedly, he pulls me down to the ground, kneeling into my back and cuffing me. The cuffs seem to be long bracers; I can’t move my arms or wrists in the least. Damn, he must have thought ahead. I might be hogtied, but at least I can breathe again. I greedily gasp and sputter for as much stagnant tunnel air as I can get.

Shiftra angrily steps towards us. I can’t tell which of us she’s glaring at. “Zero, with all due respect. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, you know this. But this is my case! You can’t just swoop in and take this out from under me! If you knew this case half as much as I did then you would know that was a distraction. Clearly this is where I–”

“You are supposed to be better than this!” Protocol Zero practically roars, standing up, keeping one foot pinned on my back, preventing me from so much as squirming. “You are maybe the only person alive immune to that sicko’s bioweapon. That means there is nothing above you taking him in so he can’t hurt anyone else. That is what should matter to you, Shiftra.” 

She looks sheepish for a moment, before hardening her glare. “Zero, I know what I’m doing. This is actually helping! Not endless goose chases and extreme measures, running around an–” 

“It must be nice,” Protocol Zero interrupts, stepping off me towards her, “to be able to pick and choose what orders you listen to. Tell me, if you’re accountable to no one but yourself, what exactly makes you better than scum like her?” He points at me and I squirm under the attention. Honestly, I don’t know whether to be excited or scared that the top cape in the city knows who I am. He steps back, kicking me over onto my side and then slamming his foot onto me again, pinning me against the wall. Damn it, I missed my opportunity to run! “Go back to headquarters, I’m going to clean up this mess for you.” 

Shiftra tries to walk up to us, but he holds his hand up to her. “What? You can’t be serious,” she cries out, continuing her advance. “Thank you for the assist or whatever, but I’ll take her in with me. You’re not going to just take my case like this!”

He whips out one of his batons, pointing it towards her. “I am serious, Shiftra. You take one more step towards us and I’ll consider you a deserter and a co-conspirator. Go back on your own or you’ll be returning in handcuffs. I don’t care what kind of powers or what asset the high ups think you are; if you can’t follow simple orders then you’re worthless to the cause.” 

She huffs, her wrists shaking. She looks like a vein is going to pop out of her forehead. For just a moment I think that she’s going to say ‘fuck it’ and join me here on the floor; at least then I’d have a fighting chance again. But then she turns on her heel, walking back through the tunnel we ran down. 

Before she turns out of eyesight, she turns her head back to the two of us, her wings bursting out from her back. “Don’t underestimate her, sir.”

I look up at him, squirming my wrists against the cold concrete wall behind me, trying desperately to find a way out of the complete trap I’m in. He growls out at her. “I think I can handle a goon who’s already been captured, rookie.” 

She ‘tisk’s and leaps forward, flying around the service tunnels and out of sight. I hold my breath until I can’t hear her any further; Zero stands still for probably the same reason, making sure she’s gone. 

After a few silent moments he speaks up again, still looking out to the tunnels where Shiftra flew out. “Well, kid. You’re not going to give me any more trouble tonight, right? No need to embarrass yourself too.” He kicks me again, probably to emphasize how much he already has me beat.

Other than the whimper I give with his kick, I stay quiet. Jaw clenched tight, staying still. He waits a moment before acknowledging my non-answer, turning around to face me. “Good decision. This could have gotten a lot uglier and I think you know tha–” 

He’s cut off mid pivot by a gigantic fist ripping itself from the wall above me directly into his face, catching him by surprise and knocking him over by sheer force. I bend the hand open and over so the palm smothers him to the ground, fingers merging with the ground around him. 

I stand up, smirking underneath my facemask. “Shouldn’t have pinned my arms against the wall, Zero,” I gloat, laughing. “That’ll teach you to mess with, er… Whatever you end up calling me!” 

I try to bend my fingers up while laughing to touch the large brace cuffs I’m locked in. I can’t quite bend my fingers upwards enough though; my wrist is entirely locked rigged. Damn it, it would have looked so cool if I could have freed myself in one motion! I stick my tongue out, bending over to my side, trying my hardest to reach. C’mon, c’mon, just a little more… 

My victory is cut short with a laser shooting up straight through the concrete prison in front of me, slicing it in chunks effortlessly. Already Protocol Zero is climbing out of the rubble, grabbing a weapon and pointing it at me. Shit! Plan B, cheese it! 

I book it down the halls awkwardly, my arms locked behind my back. I feel like a drunken weeble, bobbing and wiggling around every which way. I hear a loud ‘thunk’ from behind me, see some kind of projectile canister shoot out in front of me. Well, ok, that’s not so bad! It’s a harmless little riot bag that softly paps against the tunnel wall. And then promptly shoots sparks everywhere, arcing electric beams in every which direction, a deafening ‘krack!’ bellowing though the service tunnels. Okay, nevermind! This guy’s a lunatic out to kill me too!

I book it through the tunnels, lightning shooting off every which direction around me. One arcs dangerously close to my legs that I have to jump over. I’m lucky to land on my feet instead of on my back, that would have been game over. Damnit, I gotta get my arms free! If only I had a moment to try and reach up! I can’t get it no matter what I try, all I do is get another handful of my cloak! 

Wait, duh! I’m still thinking too literally. I grab big fistfuls of my cape, nails deep into them, and merge it into the cuffs on my arms. Bingo! Now just split them apart, and…

The force throws me totally off balance. I stumble to the floor, arms slapping in front of me like wet noodles, an electricity canister shooting right past where I was just standing. Lucky break! If only there were any drones down here, I bet the bookies would be going nuts for those odds. I wonder, is it ethical to bet on your own super battles? 

I scramble back up to my feet, and now book it in earnest. Now that my arms are free, I can really shmove and make some distance between the two of us. I look down to them. I let the bulk of the cuffs stay on my wrists to prevent any more getting placed on me and just sheared off enough that I could move everything else. So pro, I can now really move. Con, I have no idea where the hell I’m moving to. I’m totally lost down here! Getting down here was a massive mistake. 

I know there’s technically a ton of exits all over here, since these tunnels go all over the entire facility and grounds. But also there’s just as many dead ends and sealed doors, and I’m sure this lunatic knows exactly how to corral me down the wrong ways. Sorry Zero, but I don’t exactly feel like playing Inky, Blinky, or Pinky! Maybe Sue. Sue rules, absolute queen. 

I slam my hand on my coms, but get nothing but a huge burst of static out of it. Signal must be completely blocked. Of course Protocol Zero would already be ahead of that, he must have some kind of jammer on that hacker console of his. I’m not going to be able to rely on Meathead to get me out of this. God, is he ok? Did he get out already? Or did Zero have something waiting for him too? I know he can take that chump ex-sidekick of his already, but what if he brought another ace with him? 

I gotta get out of here and I gotta do it now. If I’m not going to find an exit, I’ll just make one! I keep running until I get to one of the areas with an extra tall ceiling; I know for a fact those are near to the surface level of the grounds. I take a deep breath in, calm myself, and squat down to my haunches, one hand down between my feet and the other stretched up above my head. I dig deep into the concrete flooring below me, and lift up a pillar underneath myself. It keeps going, rocketing me closer and closer to the ceiling. Electricity arcs around me as I ascend. Clearly Protocol Zero has caught up to me. I slow the pillar down enough that I don’t smash myself like a bug, but not so slow that I become an easy target. As soon as I can feel so much as the ghost of the roof, I swipe at it with my claws, turning it to a slurry, semi-solid but dripping down into the room below me. I take as deep a breath as I can, before I have the pillar launch me into the dripping slime. It’s like swimming in gelatin, gravity threatening to take over at any second. I reach up until I find solid mass, then I dig in and shock another area soft, scooping it out. And then it’s just a matter of repeating that, over and over. I desperately claw my way up, digging through the concrete, through the bedrock, through the mud and dirt, and finally breaking through the pavement, crawling one arm over the other out into the open air of cape city. 

I gasp a deep breath of fresh open air. Christ alive! Thank god I never took up smoking back when I worked as a barista. How many times have I had to hold my breath since meeting Basilisk? Maybe I should take up swimming after I’m done with all this.

God, that last stunt took a lot out of me. I’ve noticed this happening less and less as I go out on missions. It’s sort of like a muscle, the more I use it the stronger it gets. But the ‘reserves’ or whatever are clearly running dry after such a huge move. I might be mostly spent for the night. I have to make a decision right now; get up and get out of here before Zero makes his way out of the tunnels, or go see if Meathead needs help escaping too. I know which one Basilisk would have been screaming at me to do if the coms were up, that he was a big boy and could handle himself. I know that’s the one Meathead would want too. I catch my breath and pick out where exactly I am, and then I book it back towards the administrative building. 

Stealth is basically dead at this point. Alarms are blaring off left and right, camera drones are circling around me like vultures. I’m sure most of it Zero playing mind games with me, trying to scare me away or out of coordination. I turn a corner and I meet with turrets popping out of a wall, coated in the tiny spider drones, firing out down on me. I don’t take the chance that they’re pacifying rounds, not that they sound like anything but real bullets. I duck into the joining alleyway, diving out of the way of fire. I roll and stand up quickly, running my way down the artificial backways. I bob and weave through the prop dumpsters and over chain fences, circling my way towards the building. I can hear crashing and smashing the closer I get to it. Clearly Meathead had a surprise waiting for him too. I turn a corner and I can see the building, a small plume of smoke wisping up from the other side, the makeshift door I built still wide open. I book it towards it, hoping to god Meathead was crushing whoever it was (probably, hopefully, just Spiderbyte) and that we could finish strong as a team. I know I have a fighting chance with him. I’m nearly there, crossing the front pathway, before something beeps loudly from under me, and shoots up incredibly quickly from under me.

I’m flipping ass over end in the air before I can spot a glimpse of what happened. Spider drones pour out from holes in the ground between several large pylons, those big poles they use to crash oncoming cars in places they shouldn’t be in. I must have stepped right on one and got launched like a pinball. I slam into the ground painfully, again directly onto my back. My poor spine is just screaming out in pain at this point. Before I can even think of getting back up, a loud thud sounds next to me, and then everything explodes out into pain shooting out from my neck out, my joints locking and seasing out. 

After what feels like an excruciating eternity it stops, and I can look up. Protocol Zero caught me, his cattle prong batons out, standing over my prone body. “Yield.” 

I look back over to the building in front of me. Damn it, I’m so close! Apparently even looking away was too much for him, because he instantly starts slamming those rods down on me, over and over again, beating against my face, my arms, my chest, and then shoving both ends directly into my neck and sending another horrifying thousand volts into my body.

It hurts so much I can barely think, but I’m able to slowly reach my hands up to his batons and grab ahold of them as he pumps volt after volt into me. I shock them back, stopping the onslaught and turning them into limp noodles. Zero doesn’t lose a beat though, grabbing me by the chest with one hand and slamming into me repeatedly with the other fist, over and over, into my jaw repeatedly. “Yield!” 

I reach up against him, desperately clawing against him to get him to stop. He grabs me by the throat again, slams me into the pavement, against the pylons, over and over. I feel something crack in my shoulder as he holds me against the floor by the throat and he starts beating into me again. I scream out “Stop! Please stop, please stop!” I claw up at him, desperate for this to stop. I can’t breathe! He sticks his knee on my chest and beats into me more, slamming his fists into me over and over. I get my claws into his armor and shock it playable, sheer it away, try and stop him by exposing him. But he’s relentless, not even stopping him no matter how much of his body I expose. After enough chunks are warped and removed he stops beating me momentarily. He grabs me, picking me up by the hood and slamming the back of my head down onto the pavement hard. It’s dizzing, disorienting. I can’t even tell which way is up anymore, my head is entirely swimming. My vision is getting blurry and spotty. “Please, please stop…” I swing wildly, trying desperately to get the onslaught over, mostly hitting the air, pulses going through my arms and bouncing back to my chest. 

He leans over me, grabbing me with two fists by the collar of my costume. I press my hands against his exposed chest, trying desperately to push him away with what’s left of my strength. “This is your final warning. Yield! Give yourself quietly and this will be… Will be o…” He stays eerily still, just hovering inches from my face. Then, suddenly, he spits up blood onto my face, hacking it directly into my eyes. 

He drops me, standing up and backing away. What… Why? Why did he stop? What’s happening? I look at his exposed chest and the ten little impressions deep in them. I look down at my nails, the edges of a few dripping in crimson. Is he some kind of hemophiliac? Why did a little prick stop him like that…

Suddenly, he starts hacking up a lung, dropping to his knees, coughing up a storm. His chest starts squirming around and… Oh, oh fuck. “No, no no no! It doesn’t work like that! It doesn’t do anything to living things, I tried! I tried I tried I tried, stop! Stop, you can’t do this!” I try my hardest to get to my feet, to run up and help him, but he just pushes me back down to my ass while he hacks up a lung in front of me. Please, please don’t do this. Please! I can’t… I can’t have…

A crack rings out in front of me, followed by another, and another. They’re sickening, awful. I cover my ears tight with my hands, try my hardest to close my eyes but they’re almost swollen open. I can’t do anything but stare as a small cube breaks out on his chest, followed by another and another. His hacking and coughing and heaving keeps going, followed by painful cracks, and then suddenly he starts screaming, ripping the rest of his outfit off that isn’t stuck on by me clawing it apart. He pulls his helmet off, his eyes crying blood, looking like they’re going to pop out of his skull, his head inflating, before he gives one great heave that blows his mouth out, pulling it forward like a prolapse, his teeth jutting out on the extended tube in jagged intervals, tongue flapping and breaking out into nonsense cubes and shapes, veins pulsating and squirming.

I try to cover my eyes, heaving into my hands, curling into myself. I can’t look away. His screaming ends, no vocalizations at all anymore. He crumples to his knees and starts vomiting more and more, his innards tubing out further and further, arms and fingers and limbs crumpling and breaking all over. As they expose to the air, they cubify, jutter and pulsate into geometric blemishes. And then they start curdling from whatever kind of fleshy mass they used to be into a more unified, simple skin texture. At some point the inside and outside of the man seems to stop mattering as a distinction, no real definable point where anything looks like anything you would recognize on a human or in an anatomy book. It’s just a massive taught pile of smooth skin, broken and randomized in a million directions, pulsating and wobbling softly, like a failed cow orb. 

Please. That can’t be it. There has to be more. He has to be ok. I can’t even do this! I can’t have done this to something alive! I can’t! I can’t, I tried, I tried… I tried on myself. I tried on myself and then stopped trying. It’s not anything alive, it’s just… I… Oh God, oh god oh god, I just, I just greebled Protocol Zero. I just killed Protocol Zero. I just killed the number one hero in the entire city. I just, I just killed… 

I lean into myself and wail out, screaming into the night. I start sobbing, curling in on myself, everything pouring out of me. I can’t get my eyes off the… The thing in front of me, jittering and wobbling in the cool air. 

I don’t know how long we laid like that together. Minutes? Hours? Years? It was silent, save for the gelatinous wobbles of Zero and the soft buzzing of the drones circling above us. Eventually I heard someone running up towards us. I wasn’t sure who; my eyes weren’t leaving Zero’s body even if my vision weren’t shot. I’m not sure who I would rather it be right now. 

“Girlie! What’s happening, I heard you screaming!” Ok, ok, ok. It’s Meathead. I’m, I’ll be… “Are you ok? Did you get jumped too? I know yo… Christ on a cracker! What the hell is that!” He stops dead at the pulsating mass, before running towards me and scooping me up from the floor. “Oh my lord, what happened to you! Did this thing do that to you? What is that thing?” I shake my head, and point towards the ground next to the mass, to Zero’s helmet. “What.. Is that…” He grows quiet, putting two and two together. I curl in tight to him, as he holds me, taking aim to take down the drones flying above. They’ve seen enough already.

CassieSandwich

Weebles wobble but the don't fall down~

If you'd like to support my writing and want to download some stories for the ereader of your choice, you can find epubs of most of my work on my Itch.io page! There's also several queer fiction bundles you can find through there from my friends at the Secret Trans Writing Lair. Also, I have a Patreon if you would like to donate a little bit to help my writing along~

I'd also like to thank the lovely DarkSun Morrigan for all the help she gives me, from editing to idea bouncing to support. Please go read her works, especially Season of Fools which is currently ongoing. Me and Morri also have a discord channel open to the public if you'd like to interact with us!

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