“Swing looow, sweet chaaarioooot…”
Toinette had been keeping this up for an hour.
Some observations. One was that while the room was dark and rank, it seemed to be surprisingly clean. A situation like this, you expected mess smeared on the walls, crap crammed in the corners, and every single part of the room caked in some kind of crud, like someone had entered the room with a high powered hose and a grudge against sanitation.
The second was she wouldn’t have to worry about Chastity being cross that she’d stolen her outfit. Her ‘unexpected taxi’ had relieved her of it.
Third, she was PRETTY sure she heard slithering in the walls.
“This better not be like one of those weird animes,” she said, mostly to herself.
She made another spirited attempt to swing up and grab her feet to untie them. Like the many other times before it, it just caused the chain to start swinging and frustrate her attempts. With a growl of frustration, she settled down again. It was cold in the room, so she chose to ignore it.
“For, like, the twentieth time,” she shouted, “anyone home?”
The door swung open.
...Oh look, it was Ellie.
...maybe. Because between the last time she’d seen the girl, it seemed like said girl had introduced her face to a weed whacker. Toinette didn’t know much about ritualistic scarring, but she had enough sense to know what was up.
The giant hulk whose face was a mass of blisters and...something else. Some sort of infection she couldn’t place, running down his bare chest. At least he was wearing pants.
“Watch it Gulk. She reeks of magic.”
The hideous mass of twisted muscle and lack of antibiotics just emitted a low wet chuckle. He had...was that a meat thermomet...no. An ice pick? Not quite. It looked like some kind of pen...or syringe….
It was, however, long and sharp, and he was shuffling towards her with clear intentions to use it.
Toinette frantically thought of a way to de-escalate the situation.
“Look,” she said, “if you’d wanted to get into some kinky shit, you could have asked! I mean, we were kinda strapped for time… we could have improvised! Hey! Tell your meat man to back off!”
She still had Astra, but probably wouldn't hit anything vital. This creature might have redundant organs and stuff, if only by accident. She had to wait…
“You think the flesh you wear can just do that? Afraid not, Toinette...you’ll be serving a higher purpose.”
At the least, the pen-needle-thing was jabbed in her cheek. There were worse places. Gulk made that nasty chuckle again.
“Blood blood blood…”
Okay. Time for Plan B.
...which was coming up with Plan C. So what was Plan C?
Toinette desperately hoped that the chains weren't iron, and shifted. Small woman went to fashion model went to alien went to starlight in a second, and the figure threw its hands up, spraying starfire at Gulk and the ropes holding her feet.
Well, the good news was, the ropes broke. And she DID stagger Gulk…
But he didn’t melt like the first bad men. Oh, he didn’t ignore it. The way the blisters burst like overripe fruit indicated that. But as he adjusted his stance, the astra just seemed to be...negated? Eaten? Neutralized? In any case it didn’t kill him. In fact he looked positively pleased.
“Gulk, the meat needs tenderizing.”
Gulk, with a hand rife with scars and looking like it had never been washed in his life, reached out to grab Toinette’s face.
Well...this night had rapidly gone right into the shitter.
“I TENDERIZED YOUR ASS LAST NIGHT!” Toinette's voice now shrieked like violins in an argument. She backpedalled furiously. Exit, exit, exit… shit, no way out except past Pinky and the Brain here. Well.
She tried to dart past Gulk, and was brought down by a heavy blow to her shoulders. She fell with the natural dignity of a Fae at maximum glamor, but it still hurt. And sucked.
Great. Well, GG, no re. Rory was gonna be so pissed.
Unless…
Toinette raised a hand, shooting more starfire towards Ellie.
Ellie, as it turned out, could NOT take starfire to the face and smile. So she had to dodge, the doorway warping under the unnatural energies as Ellie screamed for Gulk to break her legs...but hey, EXIT!
Toinette shifted back to normal and made a break for it.
Bad news: the way out of the room just led to an equally dark hallway, and worse, now she was running on something squishy, sticky, and immensely foul smelling. She had no idea where she was going, and at the moment, that was fine. Toinette did not really have an end goal for this escape. She was rating this town very, very low right now. Men were shit, women were shit, no scenic landmarks. She needed to get the fuck home, pronto.
Around the corner, through a door, through a room…
Those were bones. Lots of bones. Polished and arranged ceremoniously on the walls and…
Yeah, those were DEFINITELY skins hung up next to them. One was an animal. Two were very definitely not animals.
Which is when the hand reached behind her, clamped over her mouth, and dragged her through another door.
“SHHHHHHH. QUIET. VERY QUIET.”
Chastity’s voice hissed in her ear, as she dragged a filthy tarp over the pair.
“Do not move, and breathe. SLOWLY.”
The reason for Chastity’s warning became very clear swiftly, as another screaming voice that sounded a lot like Ellie was coming closer, with heavy footfalls and snorting, snuffling wheezes, like the walker had both their forefingers jammed up their noses and was trying to breath through it.
“These people...infested. You really, REALLY DON’T WANT THEM TO BLEED ON US.” Chastity’s voice was a raspy hiss.
Toinette just nodded, slowly. Chastity had saved her bacon - the smart thing to do right now was to just follow her orders and escape the crazy cannibal people. Then give her a great big kiss once they got out. If they got out. Was something to look forward to.
She waited.
Footsteps thudded and crashed around. Chastity slung an arm around Toinette and clamped her hand over her mouth again.
Then they were painfully jabbed with...something. Something blunt. Someone was seeing if there was something under the tarp.
Just...keep...still…
Another painful jab.
That was the last one though. The footsteps turned and thudded away. Evidently, the poker had decided that if nothing cried out or came running, there was nothing important under the tarp.
“...hail to the lazy.” Chastity whispered, pulling the tarp back up and settling it over Toinette as a makeshift cloak. “Did they make you eat anything?”
“Not whilst I was in the locker.” Toinette looked down and made sure the tarp covered everything. “At the club, maybe? I don't remember a whole lot. Who the fuck are these people?”
“Lambtons. Why I’m here. There’s a nasty criminal war happening, but...that’s not the main issue. Someone set it off. Because it means people look less hard when others vanish.” Chastity said. “You ever heard of puppet parasites?”
“Sounds pretty self-explanatory. Sooo, don't get bit?”
“Actually, them biting you would be okay. It’s bleeding that’s the issue…”
Chastity withdrew a vial from her belt. Inside was a bloodred worm, eight inches long, and with a head that seemed to consist of three interspiraling, extended jaw...things.
“The Lambton Worm. Normally just called a tugger, or a gasper. As is, they just infest the body and can be killed with some strong pills. But this breed...Redsin’s work...and you don’t know who he is. Super mad scientist, left all sorts of nasty shit on my world. These don’t infest so much as...well, alter. Makes people a mess, but they feel amazing. Get some weird powers sometimes. But...all the Lambton worm cares about is multiplying. And so that’s all they care about. The stronger the host, the better. You must have been a lottery winner if they didn’t infect you already. Probably wanted to do it with ceremony. Which means they will really want you. And you don’t have to be in one piece as long as you’re alive. The worms will...make do.:”
Toinette, staring at the worm, had multiple visions. One of them was what Fae would do if they got their hands on something like this. The other was what if one got into her. A third one was mostly this building on fire.
“We're stopping this, right?”
“S’why I’m here. I’d just nuke the little festering crack they have here, but there might be victims inside. Like you. And I don’t have time to call one of my sneaky friends. I need to TRY and make sure there’s no one here that doesn’t want to be here and is still...well, if they’re infested, there’s still a chance, but...it’s not a fun cure. Can you use weapons?”
“Kinda. Usually use magic, but lunkhead there shrugs it off. I can use a knife.”
“Don’t have a knife.”
Chastity yanked the whip off her belt.
“I do, however, have Nekketsu here. It’s self-working. Er...just flail it at someone and it will...mostly do the work itself.”
“Of course you have a whip.” Toinette gladly took it, nonetheless. “Where do I start looking?”
“With me. Anything gets near you, whip it. Just...don’t let them bleed on you. Some drops are probably okay, but more...scream my name. I’ll...sterilize. Which...will probably leave you running around in your birthday suit again. So yes...don’t get bled on.”
“Nice. Let's go.”
Chastity took the lead, pulling Toinette towards the door of the room they were in, some sort of storage room for...wood and plants? Chastity opened the door, said door opening into the room.
It was not Gulk that was standing at said door. He was just as ugly though, with the same blisters, along with a mass of...warts? Boils? Tumors? They had consumed most of the left side of his face, his eye having been squashed amongst the defiled flesh. He was...even bigger than Gulk too.
And in a second, he had a sword impaled up through his jaw and out the top of his head. Toinette felt a rush of intense heat, and then the man’s head burst into flame, fire exploding down his body, Chastity yanking her sword out and kicking the flaming corpse backwards. Small squeaks came from the body, fiery masses trying to rip free…
Nests…
Chastity raised a hand, and even more intense fire exploded onto the man, heat buffeting Toinette as Chastity did what she said she’d do. Sterilize.
“...I’d use a gentler touch with you, but...let’s not have to do it at all, shall we?” A one sided smirk, and a wink.
Toinette looked at the corpse, then at Chastity.
“Forgive the awful pun,” she said, “but that was hot as fuck. You're badass.”
“It’s pretty too.” Chastity said, tapping said assets with her sword, glowing a dull red. Toinette, somewhere in her brain that still had logical functions, noted that certain things did not happen that should have happened if heated metal touched bare skin. Fire-producer, and fireproof.
“Now let’s get it, and yours, and anyone else, out of this damn place before someone with a differing opinion on what to do with it comes along.”
“Sure,” said the part of Toinette's brain that wasn't devising a million things to do once they escaped. “I got your back.”
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